The Right Kind of Toys

[Music] [buffet room chatter] [Piano chorus] [Applause] Can I have your attention please thank you as a service organization were concerned with many different issues not only those facing our members for that of the community the country and the world our program today is a film that focuses on one of the many vital problems facing America today the lack of qualified students in science engineering and technology I think you'll see there's a lot we can do once we understand the problem so may I have the lights down please and roll the film the problems in engineering education have become a national concern because we sensed there may be a shortage of engineers to fill both industry needs and the educational needs we participate actively in national state regional trade association boards and committees that are accumulating knowledge information and points of view on the subject and these activities are going on continually and our company is very very active in that foreign students are by and large in limitless supply they work hard and provide a very valuable asset to graduate research teams in the United States especially in the leading universities there is a very real problem existing here we haven't got the answers yet the development of new technologies there's no point in watching the rest of that film it's part of the problem not the solution that film was made only a few years ago and while it does recognize that we need to encourage young people to enter the fields of science and engineering it ignores fully half of the potential students women women are severely underrepresented in scientific and engineering fields when I graduated from college only 60 women out of a class of 637 students received engineering degrees and I was one of only two women to graduate in agricultural engineering by 1986 only 25 percent of our nation's scientists and 4% of our engineers were female this under-representation is a major factor behind the lack of qualified scientists and engineers we're facing a critical shortage in these areas and it's going to get worse unless we do something now the demand for scientists and engineers is increasing well at the same time our human resource pool is in decline by the year 2000 the number of 18 to 24-year olds in the US population will decline by nearly 20 percent from what it was in 1980 and this overall drop in the labor force will be accompanied by a dramatic demographic change recent statistics show that men make up 56 percent of the US labor force with white men representing 47 percent but by the year 2000 only 15% of new workers will be white males women on the other hand will make up 65 percent of the entering labor force taken together these two demographic trends paint an alarming picture for science and engineering in the United States this is because traditionally our scientists and engineers have been white males if the recent rate of students graduating with science and engineering degrees continues to the turn of the century we will face a shortage of 50,000 scientists and engineers every year these are alarming statistics and we must do something to change these trends if we are able to increase the participation of women in these areas we could solve the problem but it won't be easy all of us as part of our society have helped create the problem we condition our children to believe that boys are better at math and science than girls are and while there is no scientific evidence to support the belief the effect is that by the seventh-grade girls say that they like science less than other subjects and think it's less valuable and by the ninth grade girls are more likely than boys to rule out technical occupations parents tend to foster these attitudes by the toys they choose for their children mechanical and technical toys for boys and dolls and non technical toys for girls one of my first engineering assignments had me observing construction of a pipeline to report back to my boss among other things I told him about some work I'd seen done with what I believed to be a front-end loader you believe it was a front-end loader he asked you mean you don't know I said well by a virtue of its name I'm reasonably sure it was a front-end loader but I can't say I'm positive I've never had a front-end loader pointed out to me boy he said you sure didn't have any toys when you were growing up I had plenty of toys I told him but apparently they weren't the right kind parents expect boys to do well in math and science because of natural ability girls on the other hand are expected to have problems in these areas and if they do succeed it's attributed to simple hard work not intelligence teachers and educators contribute to the problem by treating boys and girls differently counselling them to enroll in different types of courses that's exactly what happened to me I graduated from high school intending to major in mathematics I had a nice SAT score in math within the top 5% of white college bound males but my English score was only so-so the university counselor who reviewed my records didn't quite know what to do you're just borderline for Honors English she said then and he saw my math SAT Wow any girl who can score like that in math can surely do Honors English that was probably not only illogical but it steered me away from mathematics my Honors English teacher urged me to get my degree in journalism and I took her advice it was eight years after that counselor looked at my SAT score before I had an engineering degree in the classroom boys are more often challenged by difficult question while girls are allowed to slide by answering simple questions as a result of these ingrained societal patterns many girls are still led to believe that they don't have to work as hard as boys why should they they're going to get married and live happily ever after with their husbands and 2.5 children in a house in the suburbs we call this the Cinderella complex and in the United States today our life like Cinderella's is truly a fairy tale recent statistics show that 71% of all women aged 25 to 34 work outside the home and only one in ten women become lifelong full-time homemakers well enough of statistics you get my point we're facing a real problem now the question becomes what can we do about it a lot actually as parents we can provide our children both boys and girls with diverse toys and experiences we can insist that our schools provide good science and math instruction beginning in kindergarten and continuing through high school we have an obligation to expect our children to do their best in all courses and we can encourage them to participate in science workshops computer camps and non-traditional activities most of all we can prepare them for the reality that when they grow up they will have to support themselves I hope every parent can experience the satisfaction I felt when my daughter was just two years old I was trying to teach her a simple joke for her Halloween trick why did the chicken cross the road I asked without missing a beat she said because she believed she could children need to learn this self-esteem they have to believe they can and they'll learn it from us as teachers we can learn new teaching techniques that challenge girls as well as boys and we must expect all students to perform at their peak role models in the classroom and career fairs can encourage girls to expand their horizons and consider non traditional career options and as business and community leaders we can demand that our schools offer strong science and math instruction for all students we can provide financial support for scholarships and internships for women in non-traditional programs of study and we can hire women for summer internships and permanent jobs in non-traditional career fields those are just a few ideas I'm sure that you can think of many more things you can do within your own community and please don't stop there put your thoughts into action if we all work together this is one problem we can lick now at the beginning of this presentation I stopped a film because it portrayed stereotypical scientists and engineers so I'd like to end by showing you some different images my job has a lot of variety in it I don't ever have two days alike there's always some challenge it may not be on a day to day basis but at least week to week there are some challenges this particular factory puts out radios aircraft radios the radio that I work on has both a military and a commercial version the commercial version fits in the biz jets a lot of the heads of states will use small biz jets that carry 1520 people the part of the radio that I actually am working on the design work is what they call the control card in the receiver transmitter that thing it works a lot like the computer in other words it tells the radio what it can and can't do now when I actually put the concept down on what we call schematic I have a drafts person make up an official drawing then they have to lay out the circuit board the actual lines that go on the piece of what looks like plastic I have to supervise that approve it I have to decide which parts are going to go on that once you have those items in hand they board is built up by a lab technician and then it goes out to be manufactured and once it's being manufactured then many times you are the person that gets called and said this thing isn't within the specification you said you said it wouldn't go over four volts and I'm getting six out of it what's wrong so I have to decide if it's a problem with the design if it's a problem with the way they're testing it if it's the way somebody put it together or maybe somehow a wrong part got in there there's a lot of evaluation analysis and evaluation that goes along with that I feel real honored to have a radio that's you know airplane that belongs the heads of state you know they they apparently feel it's it's excellent which of course I do too if if somebody a client a farmer out there had a problem let's say late in the growing season he's he's taken a ride out to a cornfield and he sees that part of it is starting to break off the stalks are breaking and falling over which makes it very difficult for combining there's enough happening that he's he's very concerned about it and he wants to know what is happening and what he can do about it at that point so I would go out with a county extension director we go out there meet the farmer out there in the field somewhere I would begin by asking him a lot of questions as to the history of the crop and if you can ask the right questions and get them to tell you things that you can certainly point you in the right direction as to what what the problem is almost like a doctor talking to a patient trying to diagnose what's wrong with him yeah there is a lot of variety difference this year so I think that that this kind of weather there's one number that's fuller season in the field that's planted 35,000 we have 18 row ears really yeah are they about this length I'd say right in here I'm asking him what hybrid it is when he planted it what were the conditions when he planted it what were the conditions during the growing season and what kind of fertilizer program he had on it what kind of we stress he had on it that's kind of a neat thing about Agriculture's that you use so many different disciplines to get it the answer science you're looking at biology you're looking at chemistry you're looking at meteorology it's it's very much a puzzle as far as troubleshooting and since I did have the heavy science in high school and and college that made it a lot easier for me as a TV meteorologist it's my job to find out what the weather is going to be in our area make my own forecast and then present it to the viewers who are watching the television and presented graphically so that they can see exactly what I'm talking about when I come into work about the first thing that I do is look at the National Weather Service wire and find out what's been going on around the region so that I can look to the west and say that well this might be coming our way and then I look at the maps we get maps that come in 24 hours a day and once I do that I make that forecast and I put in the specifics the temperatures winds what direction the wind is going to be from I just take the important things and emphasize what I want through my graphics that I make and present that to the viewers on there when I do the weather I have to talk with the anchors a little bit first we call it chat time before we get into weather and so I chat with them and then I go out into the chromakey area it's what we call the chromakey area it's just a blue screen and the camera shoots me and whenever it sees the blue screen mechanically somehow they put in the weather map behind me or whatever graphic I choose they will put behind me TV meteorology is exciting because every day you come in and is something new and that's the challenge if you get a background in electrical engineering you can be in something like I am circuit design radios you can be working for the light and power company you can be working in a factory setting up machines working with robotics there are just an infinite number of possibilities we have an obligation to expect our children to do their best in all courses and we can encourage them to participate in science workshops computer camps and non-traditional activities put your thoughts into action if we all work together this is one problem we can lick