From the Bridge: We’re swimming in digital culture. How do we help girls keep their heads above water?
At the Science for All Summit in Chapel Hill earlier in March, I was invited to present a session entitled “STEM, Girls and the influence of digital community” for a set of researchers, teachers, and advocates for equity in STEM. As an introduction, I shared about our online + in-person communities fostered by TBG’s unique curriculum. I focused on how we’ve grown communities across the U.S., particularly during and post-COVID, but also over the past 25 years. We have served Millennials, GenZers, and now, Generation Alpha, the first generation to fully grow up when minorities are the majority – and also when access to technology is ubiquitous.
And in thinking about this generation of students coming of age in a technology-immersed culture, I think about three things: virality, ubiquity, and emotions. I often show a graphic of how different technologies built an audience of 50 million users. It took telephones 50 years, and televisions just 22. The internet clocked 50M users in just 7 years, Facebook 3 years, and Twitter (now X), just 2. My favorite questions to ask my audience is, how long did it take to get that kind of audience for Pokemon Go? What about Chat GPT? Well, now we’re talking days.
New tech is very, very viral. And then there’s ubiquity. Phones, tvs, tablets, laptops, gaming devices – they’re everywhere.
And now, emotions. A new longitudinal study, the Girls’ Index, released a primer of their report, and their findings about the impact of technology on emotions confirm what we’re seeing. About half of 5th graders spend 6+ hours a day on social media, creating a crisis of confidence in our girls. We already knew that self-esteem peaks at 9 years old for girls. The Girls’ Index shows that since 2017, girls’ confidence has declined drastically. Almost 80% of girls surveyed indicated that they were “ready to explode.” Our girls are under pressure, and they are struggling with deep sadness, and technology plays a big role.
How do we, as caregivers, educators, and concerned adults begin to short-circuit this pattern? We do it by building communities of affirmation, online and in-person. We’re doing this with educators daily through our national network. We’re creating spaces of belonging for girls as young as seven. And we’re staying with them, making sure they have the support they need into middle school and beyond.
Whether it’s online or in person, we need to look out for our girls and for each other. Thanks for being here with us.
Best,
Jen Stancil
Techbridge Girls Director of Development
Let’s Break for Pi
We’re coming up on one of our favorite holidays: Pi Day.
What is pi? It’s a number, the one that starts with 3.14 and goes on to infinity. It’s also a ratio: pi times the diameter of a circle equals the circumference. And it’s a mathematical constant: no matter how big or how small the circle, if you divide the circumference by the diameter, you always get pi.
The history of pi goes way back – not to infinity, but at least a few thousand years. All over the world, in ancient times, different cultures used pi to design and build their worlds: pyramids, arches, arenas. Today, scientists and engineers – and even actual pie makers – use pi to calculate all kinds of information, from how big a parachute needs to be to deliver a certain load, to how many apples can fit in a pie. For more pi, take a look at this collection of Pi Day classroom activities from NASA. Happy Pi Day!
The Techbridge Girls Team
Techbridge Girls celebrate International Women’s Day with the Warriors!
We were thrilled to celebrate International Women’s Day on the hardwood with the Golden State Warriors! And the excitement continues all season. This NBA season, the Warriors Community Foundation, in partnership with the PG&E Corporation Foundation, has selected Techbridge Girls as one of four Bay Area nonprofits to receive a grant as part of the “Free Throws For Futures” program. Through the program, every free throw made by the Warriors during the regular season means funds raised for four education-focused nonprofit organizations working locally to improve opportunities and outcomes for youth.
On International Women’s Day, the Warriors celebrated Techbridge girls. Of course, they brought home the win, but the bigger win was for kids. For Techbridge Girls, the Free Throws for Futures program means funding that goes directly toward building supportive, exploratory educational environments that improve outcomes for our educators and the girls they teach.
Want to join the team? Make a matching donation! Donations to Techbridge Girls can be made at www.techbridgegirls.org or on the Free Throws for Futures website.
P.S. We’re wishing a very special Pi Day birthday to Warriors point guard and NBA All- Star Steph Curry! Follow us online to join us in celebrating.
Bridge Building: Upcoming Programs
Registration for our spring STEM Equity Learning Community is now closed. Registration information for our fall cohort will be released this summer. If you are a program manager, administrator, or site director for out-of-school-time STEM learning, we welcome you to join us in the Fall to explore how to create equitable learning spaces for Black, Indigenous, and Latina girls and gender-expensive youth. Reach out now to info@techbridgegirls.org or join one of our free and open Community Meetings the first Friday of every month.
Pathways: Role Models and More
Introducing… Professor Renee Cummings is an AI ethicist, criminologist, Assistant Professor of Practice in Data Science at UVA and founder of Urban AI. She’s also a champion of inclusive and collaborative tech. Her work is worth exploring in depth, but here’s one quick lesson: for emerging technologies – including AI – to benefit people from all backgrounds, people from all backgrounds need to be involved in the development of that tech. Read more or watch a video here.
Intersections: Techbridge in Conversation
April 4th – Open to All: Community Meeting with our Techbridge Girls Programs Team. Save the date or contact us at info@techbridgegirls.org to learn more.
The View: What we’re reading, using, and finding inspirational here at Techbridge Girls:
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Pi Day
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Women’s History Month