Parents, you are the most important and influential people in shaping your daughter’s future. As a parent, you are the best person to spark, sustain, or renew your child’s sense of discovery and excitement in science and engineering. Here are some tips and resources to encourage learning and family fun.
- Look for learning opportunities in everyday activities. Take an extra five minutes to study how the gears on a bike work, involve your daughter in cooking or repair projects that require measuring and mathematics, and ask her open-ended questions like “How do you think the gears work together?”
- Encourage your daughter’s curiosity by pursuing the questions she asks. Don’t know the answer? Don’t worry. In fact, seeking the answers by looking in books, searching the Internet, or asking someone who knows are powerful ways to model how you find out.
- Try setting a dinner-time tradition of asking each family member to share a question she asked herself that day, or something she wondered about in the classroom or on the job.
- Watch a documentary, an educational video, or TV show that relates to what’s being learned in school or in Techbridge, and talk about it together.
- Involve your daughter in planning a family activity such as designing a garden, thinking through a household repair, or planning a family trip.
- Broaden your selection of family outings. The San FranciscoBay area is filled with science museums and technology centers. Include them in your next day trip. Many have free admission days. Check out our museum visits section and print out a scavenger hunt to a local museum!
- Role models matter! Find someone whom your daughter can talk with to learn more about colleges and careers. Speak with a teacher or school counselor if you need help finding one.
- Are you struggling with gift ideas for your daughter, niece, or friend? Techbridge's List of Holiday Presents for Girls Encouraging Girls in Technology, Science, and Engineering
Provide her with many avenues of interest and this may encourage her to be an astronomer, computer scientist, or civil engineer!
Family events and resources help parents encourage and support girls in their interest in science, technology or engineering. In 2010, we will be producing and distributing a family science guide for the Bay Area.