Hidden No More: Empowering Women Leaders in STEM was an U.S. State Department International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) which brought women in science to the United States in the fall of 2017 to explore innovation, STEM education, and scientific research. Eight visitors from Australia, Bermuda, Chile, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, South Korea, and Spain came to northwest Florida on this project whose creation was inspired by the movie Hidden Figures.
The group’s welcome orientation occurred at Pensacola City Hall where City Council Executive Don Kraher shared an overview of the city’s history and highlighted the functions of city government. They also experienced hospitality through dinners in the homes of Drs. Jerry and Megan Pratt, Ric and Lisa Nickelsen, and Mike and Karen Jurkowich and over the weekend enjoyed the natural beauty of the region through a dolphin cruise.
To focus on supplemental STEM education programming, the visitors spent time at the University of West Florida where they met Dr. Brian Eddy who shared his Code and Tech Stars (CaTS) program for girls. The group meets the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month and students learn the fundamentals of coding through exploration and play. CaTS is led by UWF faculty with assistance from students. Participants create their own games, build websites, and work with robots.
During a meeting and site visit at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) Robotics Lab, the group met with Dr. Sharon Heise and Michelle Bowers who highlighted the IHMC’s work at the forefront of artificial intelligence, robotics, machine-learning, and human-machine interaction. The IHMC has research relationships and partnerships with universities all over the United States and the world, and 25% of the staff are citizens of other countries.
The group also spent time in Santa Rosa County with Superintendent of Schools Tim Wyrosdick and senior staff and faculty members, including Michael Thorpe, to learn about their successful STEAM INNOVATE! program which is operating in twenty schools, from elementary to high school. It includes a leadership corps of teachers and principals which regularly reports on and works to improve the program.
Next was a meeting and school visit to West Florida High school of Advanced Technology where the group met Assistant Principal Cody Strother and visited several classrooms. West Florida High School of Advanced Technology is an innovative school with technology-focused career academies including aerospace engineering, agriscience technology, civil engineering and architecture, criminal justice, emergency medical services, nursing, information technology, biotechnology, telecommunications, sports medicine and multi-media. Many of these academies partner with local businesses to provide apprentice-like experiences for students to promote future workforce opportunities.
The final appointment in the region was a site visit to the Pensacola MESS Hall Museum with Founder & Executive Director Dr. Megan Pratt who was inspired by the popularity of the IHMC’s Science Saturdays Program to create this atypical museum. Rather than exhibits with planned outcomes, visitors get to work like real scientists, developing questions and creating experiments, engaging in complex reasoning and learning science just through tinkering. It’s all hands on science, and at the appointment, the group enjoyed seeing an alternative, hands on method, of introducing STEM fields to youth and adults in an interactive environment.
The Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council thanks everyone who helped make this project a success and thanks the visitors for the inspiration they shared.
