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Education Dive
"Girls Take Flight" program recruits San Diego high school girls to pilot drones
Lauren Barack
Dec. 18, 2019
Dive Brief:
In the San Diego Unified School District, girls who are high school
sophomores and juniors can sign up for a program to help them earn a
remote pilot certification from the Federal Aviation Administration,
wrote District Administration.
Just 5% of these certifications are earned by women, according to the
story, which is why 10 students were selected to be part of the
150-hour Girls Take Flight internship program and learn about drone
operations, navigation, weather and other skills like photography and
videography.
The biggest challenge for the program has been to find female drone
pilots who can teach the skills, which the group is looking to address
going forward.
Dive Insight:
Educators are always looking for ways to encourage and support female
students' interest in STEM, potentially helping to direct them toward
careers in these fields. One way is to provide them with role models so
they can see someone who looks like them in these positions, helping
visualize a path they may be able to follow, as well. That’s certainly
the sentiment Sally Ride shared, the first U.S. woman who traveled in
space, in a 2009 interview.
The first step is getting young women into STEM classes. And while more
girls are starting to sign up for STEM-related subjects like
engineering, they’re still not signing up for these courses as often as
boys, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Women
make up just 35.5% of bachelor’s degrees awarded in STEM fields in the
U.S., and just 33.7% of PhDs, according to data from nonprofit
Catalyst. Clearly, parity between men and women in STEM is not there —
even among drone pilots.
Schools may want to consider partnering with organizations in the
community to create mentorships, sponsor school events and host expos.
This can help to increase access for girls to professionals working in
STEM fields and see what their future could one day look like.
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