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Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3404
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 10:21 am: | 
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Many educators worry that the ability of the United States to produce enough scientists will fall short unless a more diverse group of students are recruited to science study — and thrive. Despite the odds, some black females do succeed in science. Swimming Against the Tide: African American Girls and Science Education (Temple University Press) looks at why some students succeed, and the roadblocks they face along the way. The book is based on a combination of statistics, surveys and interviews. Sandra L. Hanson, the author and professor of sociology at Catholic University, responded via e-mail to questions about the book....
Full interview: http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/02/hanson |
Libralind2
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Libralind2
Post Number: 1160
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 05:57 pm: |
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Great post ! Important info
LiLi |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13485
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 08:19 pm: |
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Yes. Good to read about a subject that deals with facts instead of excerpts from blobs full of resentment and emotion and whining. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 586
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 09:51 pm: |
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My oldest daughter and her female classmates were recently invited to a presentation by a female astronaut, Pam Melroy:
Pamela Anne Melroy (born 17 September 1961) is a retired United States Air Force officer and an active NASA astronaut. She served as pilot on Space Shuttle missions STS-92 and STS-112 and commanded mission STS-120.
She's not black, fyi. She presented awesome pictures and video--inside the shuttle at launch, rendezvous with the international space station, which is also under the command of a female astronaut, space walks, their tiny living quarters, zero-gravity fun, and repairs to the solar array on the space station. Did you know that the shuttles circle the earth every 90 minutes, so they get to see a sunrise or a sunset every 45 minutes? And stars don't "twinkle" in outer space. What we see as a "twinkle" is caused by the presence of the earth's atmosphere.
Clearly, the chaperones learned as much as the kids did. ;-)
Melroy challenged the girls, telling them that the next frontier was sending humans to Mars. She and her comrades will be too old to go when that mission is ready to be undertaken. That mission will be undertaken by people who are kids in school today...maybe one of them.
She talked about diversity as well, but she did so in terms of the diverse professional backgrounds that astronauts must have: military, engineering, astronomy, and other fields that just don't "scream" astronaut; it takes expertise in all these disciplines to build a strong mission team. You can't really train in college to be an astronaut per se. You have to first be something else, and excel at it, usually at a PhD level. The average age of those entering the program at NASA is 35.
Anyway, the mission's robotics specialist was a black woman, Stephanie Wilson, and we saw her in action in the video. After Dr. Mae Jemison, I didn't know any other black women had gone into space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Wilson |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3406
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:14 am: |
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Glad you three enjoyed the article! And FK, wonderful story about the presentation. I hope you will be writing about this on your blog or for a magazine article. I think I may have mentioned to you that I have a couple friends who you might want to talk to if you ever do an article on Black women in the sciences. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 591
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:25 am: |
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Blog? What blog? Can't you see I'm hard at work on my book proposal??????????
Sheesh...
:-p |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3408
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:40 am: |
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^^ LOL  |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13494
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 12:48 pm: |
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Your post was certainly the calibre worthy of magazine material, YK. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 594
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 07:49 pm: |
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Aw, shucks. ;-) Thanks, ladies. I did blog it. But I'm holding fast to my "no querying until this proposal is done" rule. Temptations, lol!
Yvette, this is kinda tangential but are you familiar with Ralph Bangs's work? |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3409
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 09:45 am: |
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Read your blog post on this, FK. Well done.
And no, I am not familiar with Bangs. What's up with him? I'm currently on new-music-and-book-buying lockdown, but I plan to make a trip to the public library this weekend if I meet my writing goals, so maybe I will check him out if you recommend. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 598
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 12:38 pm: |
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He's one of your kind, lol, an academic. His center at the University of Pittsburgh puts out a regular report of the state of Black Pittsburgh, and it's always a dismal affair. Anyway, our paths crossed recently. It seems he's doing research on black high school student achievement, amongst other race and social justice topics. I'm vague on the details, but I thought of you while he and I were chatting. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3413
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 09:09 am: |
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Oh, OK: "one of my kind" LOL! I googled him: looks like he does interesting work and the Center he is part of sounds fascinating, too. |
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