The Youngsters and STEM Education

Our society dictates that girls and women do not belong to STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Since the first years of school, children aquire a sense of gender identity, and more often they develop prejudices, associating boys with mathematics. es0Rigidly and unconsciously, toys encourage gender stereotypes, influencing boys to play games about constructions and engineering. Even children clothing suggests that girls are not very good at maths.

But things are not really as society displays them, and we prove that girls too can have good results in STEM fields. In this regard, as a continuation of the  ideas displayed within the informatics contest for girls, we have organized a workshop on STEM education for youngsters, where very beautiful and intelligent girls, both from Romania and from The Moldavian Republic, have discussed (together with the boys) about AppInventor, Scratch or Visual Studio programming.

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The workshop was organized by EduSoft, with the support of Benefica center, between the 20th and the 24th of June, 2015. Among the guests were also counted three of the four girls from Stefanesti, who had won the first award at the Technovation Challenge mobile applications contest of 2014 in San Francisco: Maria Toma, Tatiana Moraru, and Mihaela Bîrca. (Corina Hariton was with her parents, celebrating her 14th birthday)

At the event were also present pofessor Galina Botezatu and her student, Olga Uţica, from Puhoi, Ialoveni ( The Moldavian Republic)

The volunteers, Simona-Elena Prutianu, Robert Spataru, and Ştefan Ionescu, presented from their experience in the programming field, as for Sorina Zdrăguş, Cătălina Răilean, Maria-Diana Elisei, George Teodorescu and Mihail Budurin, they attended the Moldavian guests and made sure they feel comfortable.

The workshop’s program was divesified, and included both discussions on STEM education or informatics contests, and visits to different IT companies in Bacau or recreational trips to Iaşi, Târgu Neamţ, Braşov, Sinaia, or Bran.

The press recorded here about our event.

“The Youngsters and STEM Education”,  20-24 of June, 2015, Bacău, România