1. Richard Hudson
  2. http://informalscience.org/community/users/profile/1520
  3. Director of Science Production
  4. SciGirls FrogWatch
  5. http://pbskids.org/scigirls
  6. Twin Cities Public Television
  1. Rita Karl
  2. http://national.tpt.org/about/who-we-are/
  3. Director of STEM Outreach & Education
  4. SciGirls FrogWatch
  5. http://pbskids.org/scigirls
  6. Twin Cities Public Television
  1. Angie Prindle
  2. https://goo.gl/0ssuUr
  3. Series Producer
  4. SciGirls FrogWatch
  5. http://pbskids.org/scigirls
  6. Twin Cities Public Television
Presenters’
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Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: Sean Smith

    Sean Smith

    Facilitator
    Senior Researcher and Managing Partner
    May 11, 2015 | 08:56 a.m.

    The video was very engaging. It made me want to watch the full-length episodes. Did the project include research on how the videos have been used (e.g., by teachers) and any impacts resulting from videos? I am very interested in the findings as well as the research methods that can be used in a context like this.

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 11, 2015 | 03:09 p.m.

    TPT, the producer of SciGirls, is committed sharing our evaluation results. Please visit tpt.org/science/evaluations. The site also includes evaluations of our prior series, DragonflyTV. We support a network of educators, SciGirlsCONNECT.org, which uses the episodes and the companion activities. See the evalauation reports on the site by Valerie Knight-Williams.

  • Icon for: Sean Smith

    Sean Smith

    Facilitator
    Senior Researcher and Managing Partner
    May 12, 2015 | 09:07 a.m.

    Thank you, Richard. That’s great. I’ll take a look.

  • Icon for: Davida Fischman

    Davida Fischman

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 11, 2015 | 12:54 p.m.

    The excerpt aired here nicely demonstrates the girls’ interest in the data collection and how engaging they found it. Is there also follow-up to help them see the bigger picture of the scientific investigation – how the data is analyzed, and what publications might result from such work?

    It seems that this series could be used to good effect by science teachers, in sparking students’ interest in participating in these or similar projects. Do you have reports of such use, whether organized by your project or otherwise? Perhaps in some follow-up project?

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 11, 2015 | 03:12 p.m.

    Our approach is based in a research-based set of strategies that have proven to engage girls, called the SciGirls Seven. We also map our programs to the inquiry process and the engineering design cycle. So we devote time in every episode to sharing the results of the STEM activities. The episodes and the companion materials are disseminated through SciGirlsCONNECT.org, a national network of educators.

  • Barbara Flagg

    Guest
    May 11, 2015 | 01:09 p.m.

    I am the evaluator for the Citizen SciGirls project. This month, with NSF support, Citizen SciGirls is launching six episodes and two games to encourage viewer/user interest in citizen science. Check out PBSKids.org/SciGirls. This spring/summer, we are collaborating with FrogWatch USA to evaluate the contribution of SciGirls online videos and games to girls’ interest in citizen science, feelings of self-efficacy, and understanding of the value and features of citizen science projects. The evaluation report should be available on informalscience.org around November 1, 2015. Thanks for your interest. Barbara Flagg, Ed.D., Director, Multimedia Research

  • Icon for: Joni Falk

    Joni Falk

    Co-Director
    May 14, 2015 | 11:46 a.m.

    Hi Richard and Barbara, Great video. I would have expected no less. Is there data on how many classrooms or after-school clubs replicate the ideas shown in the videos? Very inspirational!

  • Icon for: Rita Karl

    Rita Karl

    Co-Presenter
    Director of STEM Outreach & Education
    May 14, 2015 | 12:21 p.m.

    Hi Joni,
    Yes, our outreach program SciGirlsCONNECT.org has trained 1,800 educators in the last four years. Our 116 SciGirls Partners organizations in 34 states (including community-based organizations, universities, science museums and schools) and trained educators report running 500 SciGirls programs reaching over 25,000 students (66% girls) through 2014.

  • Icon for: Arthur Lopez

    Arthur Lopez

    Facilitator
    Computer Science Teacher
    May 11, 2015 | 01:13 p.m.

    I think that this is video is well done. It really caught my interest that this project is broadening participation by engaging young girls/women that are also ethnically diverse. Can you please specifically describe your efforts on recruiting young women of ethnically diverse backgrounds? I also am wondering if you are expanding the project or program or if there is a follow up to include much larger groups of students. Can you describe if this is happening and also describe the challenges that you faced in expanding the program? Thanks you!

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 11, 2015 | 03:14 p.m.

    In both our shows and in our national outreach effort (see SciGirlsCONNECT.org) we emphasize diversity and over the last decade have worked specifically in outreach to Hispanic communities. We have a new series in development that will be shot in Spanish, with Spanish-speaking girls and mentors.

  • Icon for: Arthur Lopez

    Arthur Lopez

    Facilitator
    Computer Science Teacher
    May 13, 2015 | 11:32 a.m.

    Wonderful! Thanks for the reply Richard. I think that it is great that you are reaching out to underrepresented groups and look forward to exploring the Web site.

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 11, 2015 | 03:07 p.m.

    Each half-hour episode features a different group of girls. Once we find a topic and location, we cast girls through schools and afterschool programs, placing a high priority on diversity.

    There are now a total of 28 episodes across the breadth of STEM. Please visit SciGirlsCONNECT.org or scigirls.org to see more videos, and let us know what you think.

  • Icon for: Miyoko Chu

    Miyoko Chu

    Senior Director, Communications
    May 11, 2015 | 07:44 p.m.

    I love seeing the energy and enthusiasm of these girls exploring nature and recording data! When I was their age, I had not heard of anything called citizen science but I would have loved it. Thanks for sharing this with kids today! I am looked forward to this Wednesday’s episode on Feathered Friends!

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 12, 2015 | 12:22 p.m.

    Thanks for mentioning the new “Feathered Friends” (CUBS) episode. It will be available on our website and mobile app at scigirls.org mid-day on Wednesday, and will be broadcast on many PBS stations on the weekend.

  • Icon for: Gay Mohrbacher

    Gay Mohrbacher

    Outreach Project Director
    May 12, 2015 | 12:06 p.m.

    This was excellent. REAL girls and REAL reactions. The girls got more focused/serious as the project went on. Inspiring.

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 12, 2015 | 12:25 p.m.

    This is only a 3-minute clip, so you’ll enjoy seeing how the girls develop their ideas about science in a full episode. Our formative research for SciGirls demonstrated that the full half-hour episode, as opposed to a shorter video, deepened viewers’ engagement and increased their interest in doing their own science investigations. See all of our evaluations at tpt.org/science/evaluations

  • Icon for: Janet Kolodner

    Janet Kolodner

    Facilitator
    Regents' Professor Emerita
    May 12, 2015 | 03:54 p.m.

    Very fun to watch!!! One of the things I learned in a project where we used videos like this was that it was worthwhile creating a database of snippets that are indexed according to their usefulness so that when kids are working on something similar, they can easily find and rewatch whatever they had seen in a video previously. We also were then able to attach other resources they might need to solve a problem or work on a design project. Unfortunately, I never wrote this up. ;-( But I think with an appropriately organized case library of examples and snippets, you could get even more out of these videos.

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 13, 2015 | 11:46 a.m.

    Janet – Glad you enjoyed the clip. All of our shows are on PBSLearningMedia, and we break them up into segments. For an example, see http://goo.gl/MjrkM0 . But your idea goes one step further — to index on the common components of all the shows. great idea!

  • Icon for: Janet Kolodner

    Janet Kolodner

    Facilitator
    Regents' Professor Emerita
    May 12, 2015 | 03:56 p.m.

    I really like the idea of a whole group of citizen science projects that kids can choose from. Is this what you are building on?

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 13, 2015 | 11:53 a.m.

    We selected six, national projects for the SciGirls series (our budget only allowed us to make six shows), but we have partnered with SciStarter.org so children who visit the SciGirls website on PBSKids.org can search for a citizen science project matching their interests. See http://pbskids.org/scigirls/citizen-science

  • Icon for: Janet Kolodner

    Janet Kolodner

    Facilitator
    Regents' Professor Emerita
    May 12, 2015 | 03:57 p.m.

    One more question. Why only girls?

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 13, 2015 | 11:57 a.m.

    Such an interesting question and one we get frequently. The short answer is that there have been many STEM series for both boys and girls, from Bill Nye to Fetch to Design Squad. SciGirls began as an outreach effort to disseminate gender research in STEM, through grants from the NSF’s Gender Equity division (Ruta Sevo; then Jolene Kay Jesse). Our rubric, SciGirls Seven (http://goo.gl/pu0vLK), is informed by that body of research, with the specificc goal of addressing the shortages of women in STEM careers. But there are clearly similar needs with other populations and we’re exploring companion series!

  • Icon for: Kathryn Quigley

    Kathryn Quigley

    Producer and Media Lead
    May 12, 2015 | 05:25 p.m.

    This looks like a great project. Its incredible how much you were able to cover and convey in such a short amount of time.

  • Icon for: Richard Hudson

    Richard Hudson

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Science Production
    May 13, 2015 | 11:58 a.m.

    Thanks for that compliment! I hope you’ll watch the full episode, at http://tiny.cc/FrogWatch, and see the complete process unfold!

  • Icon for: Deborah Kariuki

    Deborah Kariuki

    Computer Science Teacher
    May 15, 2015 | 10:40 p.m.

    I want to be a SciGirl(s, how awesome is this to get these girls to learn so many scientific lesson by doing such a cool project and actually engaging with other scientists. Then engagement and enthusiasm of learning was great. I am highly impressed by the work of SciGirls, great job.

  • Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.