"Discovery" Wins its First Award

A few years ago, my daughter came home from a school trip to a major airline manufacturing facility. She declared that she wanted to be an aerospace engineer. Understandably, my wife and I were thrilled. What kid knows what they want to do in life? Most adults haven't even figured it out yet.

I started to dig in, trying to find out what kind of opportunities this field would present to her.
I found lots of Engineering Groups. I also found Women's Engineering groups. I began to wonder why women needed their own groups. After all, in this day and age, it couldn't be that women were really still held down in STEM fields. Could it?

Stop laughing.

Of course they can. There are a variety of reasons... some even make sense, but it still adds up to a very unlevel playing field, with women on the low end by a wide margin. So, I started digging a bit deeper.

 I spoke to some engineers of many different disciplines, both males and females. What I found was that while there isn't really institutionalized bias against women, there are still many men and women in this and other fields that think that girls, (and this begins in middle school), just can't keep up with boys in math and science.

Go back and read that sentence again. I'll wait.

Right?  I was, shall we say, a bit miffed at that idea.

So, I started writing a script. That script eventually turned into "Discovery". It's a story about how the young women on a University Engineering team are viewed by those in power, even after they come up with the solution that saves the day!


"Discovery" has been completed and is now making the rounds of film festivals. Got our first award today. Very excited.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Bravery of Kids

As someone who has stood in boardrooms and conferences and spoken on topics where my expertise ranged from extensive to non-existent, I can sympathize with those who fear public speaking. I've often thought that it takes a certain level of distain for the audience in order to calm those fears. How wrong I was in that notion. While that attitude may work for some, I've discovered what really makes for a good public presentation. Bravery... where you acknowledge your fear and do your job anyway... is what it takes. Preparation, confidence, being able to read an audience, all of these things are important and necessary, but bravery will get you through like nothing else. I had the opportunity to videotape an elementary school talent show recently, and as with all events of this caliber, one can see them in a variety of ways. You can view it as a "celebration of mediocrity", or you can find the beauty in the simplicity of it. I’ve run a few of these shows when my
Read more

Corporal Punishment

http://huff.to/hixQdT I read this. And so I then I read this. http://ti.me/nP2LZ And then, because I couldn't believe that I was getting the full story, I went here: http://bit.ly/3f9KbM Growing up and living in the Northeast, U.S., I have never been hit by a teacher in school. I'm quite sure that my mother, even as I pushed her toward the brink of her sanity time and time again during my educational years, would never have allowed it.  Raising my children now in the Northeast means that, while I have certainly heard of the practice of corporal punishment, I was under the assumption that it was a thing of the past, buried away with those times of air raid drills, segregated schools and doctors doing cigarette commercials on TV. So, you can imagine my shame-faced surprise when I discovered that 19 states in our nation still allow, condone and in some places encourage corporal punishment in schools. And, as if that isn't enough to get the blood boiling, perhaps the fac
Read more

Body Mass and You

BMI article In the district where my children go to school, a new rule was instituted a few years ago. They were to be weighed and their BMI, (Body Mass Index) was to be recorded. I was told by the school nurse, (a really nice woman with a long history of doing her job and doing it well), that the rule was required by the state, and it was little more than a formality. Which got me thinking. Could it be that, at the state level, someone was really, genuinely concerned about childhood obesity, and instituted this rule so as to gather data, and then do something about it? As much as I would like to believe that… uh, no. Sorry. Can’t. I know first-hand that the folks in charge of food service in our school district do care, and have instituted policies to help make the transition to healthier choices available to my kids. I know they are working hard to exceed the guidelines set forth for them by the state and federal government. There is still a long way to go, but they are wo
Read more