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Posted on February 23rd 2021
The Science Department celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science!
The Science Department celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science!
Each year, the 11th of February marks an international celebration of women and girls in science and STEM and the contributions they make in their field. For 2021, the theme was “Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19".
As you may know, there is a huge gender gap between men and women in Science! Also, there are even less girls and women across sciences such as Physics, Chemistry and so on. This gap between men and women widens when looking at minority groups in girls, such as Black and Asian girls and women!
The Science Department used the day’s lessons as an opportunity to discuss the contributions made by female scientists in fighting COVID-19: from finding out more about the Coronavirus, to developing the vaccine and encouraging citizens to take it! Female scientists have been FANTASTIC and so important in leading the fight against Coronavirus and we wanted to celebrate them!
We watched an interview with Dr Kizzmekia Corbett, an African American Female Immunologist, a scientist who works on the body’s immune response and fighting disease, and the work she has done in developing the vaccine in the US.
Comments from some of our students included:
“Dr Kizzmekia Corbett seems very passionate about her job. She has a strong science background and started being interested in science from a very early age. In terms of the vaccine, she has used her clinical knowledge from the past 6 years and started the first set of trials for the vaccine.”
“We have this international day to support young women’s interests.”
“The percentage of women in STEM-based jobs is much lower than men... that’s why this is important”.
“Dr Corbett talks enthusiastically; she is different from the stereotypical ‘boring’ scientists.”
Overall, we had a great response and stimulated many important and interesting discussions with our students!
As part of our celebration, we also wanted to celebrate some amazing female scientists at Invictus!
Year 7
Hanna, Jeeya, Gift, Yvonne, Raahi, Vani
Year 8
Victoria, Maha, Adrian, Ziah, Joyce, Deepthi
Year 9
Riley, Lekshmi, Tahlia, Khulsum, Tiana
Year 10
Ayishat, Sabirin, Zahra, Princess, Shamia and Summer-Jade
Year 11
Assia, Tola, Pranavee, Alushba, Bilan, Amenta
Well done to you all for being nominated as outstanding young female scientists!
To find out more about Women in Science for yourself, use the following links:
https://en.unesco.org/events/international-day-women-and-girls-science
