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AALBC.com's Thumper's Corner Discussion Board » Culture, Race & Economy - Archive 2009 » Black Girls and Science Education « Previous Next »

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Yvettep
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Username: Yvettep

Post Number: 3404
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 10:21 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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
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Libralind2
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Username: Libralind2

Post Number: 1160
Registered: 09-2004

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Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 05:57 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Great post ! Important info
LiLi
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Cynique
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Username: Cynique

Post Number: 13485
Registered: 01-2004

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Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 08:19 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Yes. Good to read about a subject that deals with facts instead of excerpts from blobs full of resentment and emotion and whining.
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Ferociouskitty
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Username: Ferociouskitty

Post Number: 586
Registered: 02-2008

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Posted on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - 09:51 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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
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Yvettep
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Username: Yvettep

Post Number: 3406
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:14 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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.
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Ferociouskitty
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Post Number: 591
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Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:25 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Blog? What blog? Can't you see I'm hard at work on my book proposal??????????

Sheesh...

:-p
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Yvettep
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Post Number: 3408
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Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 10:40 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

^^ LOL :-)
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Cynique
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Username: Cynique

Post Number: 13494
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Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 12:48 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Your post was certainly the calibre worthy of magazine material, YK.
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Ferociouskitty
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Post Number: 594
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Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2009 - 07:49 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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?
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Yvettep
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Username: Yvettep

Post Number: 3409
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Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 09:45 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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. :-)
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Ferociouskitty
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Post Number: 598
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Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 12:38 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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.
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Yvettep
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Username: Yvettep

Post Number: 3413
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Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 09:09 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

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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