In light of Women’s History month, it is important to highlight the amazing contributions of many women to society. As an all girl’s robotics team, Girls of Steel works to promote the contributions of women in STEM in order to inspire young people to pursue their passions in STEM. We used to do this through social media, events, and outreach, but the COVID-19 pandemic of the past year has created complications and caused us to rethink how we spread our message. 

Due to the pandemic, we are unable to do any in-person outreach events and instead increased our media presence to promote our messaging. Our media communications team created a new way of spreading our message and inspiring girls and women through a series of posts highlighting significant women in STEM. We post on three social media platforms (1) about contributions by a diverse group of women. Our choices have been inspired by two books –  Rachel Ignotofsky’s “Women in Science” (2) and Clare Forrest’s “Mighty Women of Science.(3)” Fun fact: our team is featured in the “Mighty Women of Science.” 

We are also going to expand the project past just media posts and design posters that can be downloaded from the Girls of Steel website.  Our first poster was requested by a teacher who wanted to tell her class about physicist, Lise Meitner. 

Below is an example of a social media post from the series:

Featured Women in STEM so far:

1. Marie Curie (2)(3)
2. Rosalind Franklin (2)(3)
3. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna
4. Mae C. Jemison (2)
5. Lise Meitner (2)(3)
6. Grace Hopper (2)(3)
7. Cady Coleman
8. Patricia Bath (2)
9. Alice Ball (2)
10. Raye Montague
11. Jane Hinton
12. Marie Daly
13. Jocelyn Bell (2)
14. Jane Goodall (2)
15. Stephanie Kwolek
16. Judith Resnik
17. Esther Lederberg (2)(3)

(1) https://twitter.com/TheGirlsofSteel, https://www.facebook.com/girlsofsteelrobotics, and https://www.instagram.com/girlsofsteelrobotics/
(2) Featured in Rachel Ignotofsky’s “Women in Science”
(3) Featured in Clare Forrest’s “Mighty Women of Science”