We read a very interesting interview in Friday morning's Women Rule newsletter from Politico and we wanted to share it with you. Please find Elizabeth Ralph's interview with Caroline Criado-Perez below on her new book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. 

Maybe you love peeps. Maybe you hate them. Maybe 10 packages of them somehow wound up in your house this Spring and you'd really love if your kids didn't eat them all! We have a "solution"! Make play dough with them (no detergent or borax required).

In honor of Women's History Month we wanted to share the profiles of six Amazing Women in STEM who inspire and motivate us. We hope and encourage you to share these women's, and those of so many others, stories all year-round!

In fact, you can share these stories by purchasing a set of our Awesome Women in STEM notecards. This six card set was designed by two of Rosie Riveters board members' and includes adorable illustrations and a short profile of Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Katherine Johnson, Joan Clarke, Emily Roebling, and Chien-Shiung Wu.  https://www.rosieriveters.com/rosiereads#!/Awesome-Women-in-STEM-Note-Cards/p/125617289/category=0

Through your purchase you are directly supporting our after-school and Saturday programs for girls ages 4-14 that are structured to remodel participants’ relationships with failure, improve critical thinking and problem solving skills, and ultimately inspire more young women to engage with STEM.

It's cold outside and the options to do anything that involve leaving your warm home seem limited at best. But with school delays and closings piling up we wanted to provide a fun STEM activity to keep everyone hopefully occupied and entertained. 

One advantage that SUPER cold temperatures have is that they provide an opportunity to create FROZEN BUBBLES! If you're little one created their own "super strength" bubble solution with us then now is a great time to get it out and explore the STEM around bubbles even further. However, if your little one didn't create bubble solution with us there is no need to worry as any store bought bubble solution should suit. 

The skin of a bubble is actually made up of three layers (see image) and when temperatures drop (we mean really drop like into the single digits and below) the water layer can begin to freeze! 

For the best chance at creating Elsa grade bubbles we'd suggest blowing the bubble and then gently catching them on the wand. As our temperatures may not dip below zero degrees Fahrenheit the bubbles need a little bit of time to sit for the water layer to crystalize. 

Have your camera at the ready and see if you can capture some awesome frozen bubble images and share them with us at https://www.facebook.com/RosieRiveters or https://twitter.com/ARosieRiveter using #RRBubbles. 

We hope that you enjoyed your first proper snow days of the year! As this year's forecasts have us braced for quite a bit more snow (perhaps even this Sunday!) we wanted to share a couple of fun STEM snow activities to keep your little ones busy. 

Snow Cream 

We know eating snow is a debated topic (more info on that here), but if your family decides that eating a little snow is ok with you then here is a fun recipe for Snow Cream. Take some tome to observe the physical changes, melt rate and general snow consistency along the way:

• Mix together
  • 1 cup of whole milk or cream
  • 1/2 cup of maple syrup (or sugar although it may be a little grainy)
  • 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
  • Pinch of sea salt
• Add the mixture above to
  • 8 cups of fresh (CLEAN!) snow. You can even set your collection bowl out when the snow starts to fall to capture the freshest snow. 
• Mix until the mixture forms an ice cream like consistency. Eat and Enjoy!

Erupting Snow

The science of chemistry is the study of matter and the chemical changes that matter undergoes. Explore Chemistry by combining different substances to try to form snow. Make sure to observe the properties of the substances before and after combining them. 

Materials

• Baking Soda
• Sodium Bicarbonate
• Vinegar 
• Glitter (Optional)
• Pipet/ Eye Dropper (Optional)
• Container  

Instructions

1. Mix equal parts of baking soda and sodium bicarbonate together in a container. Add glitter if desired.
2. Use the pipet  (or just pour a little bit) to add vinegar to the snow mixture

Whats Happening? When baking soda and shaving cream are mixed together they form a number of new substances including but not limited to sodium stearate, carbon dioxide and water.  What makes the snow cold is the process of the liquid in the shaving cream evaporating. The reaction from the vinegar touching the baking soda creates bubbles that release carbon dioxide which is what creates the fizzy look.

Rosie Riveters is honored to have partnered with Microsoft to develop and deliver a coding project during our February-March 2016 pilot program and to work with the many experienced, dedicated and enthusiastic Microsoft women who gave their time as volunteers and mentors for our programs. Rosie Riveters is constantly working to expose our participants to tangible, relatable, and real experiences that encourage girls to not only better understand STEM as a field, but also see possibilities for themselves as future engineers, computer programmers, and scientists. So when Microsoft invited our participants to the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Reston,VA we enthusiastically said yes! 

School’s out and summer is finally here!

But did you know that students lose an average of one to two months of academic knowledge—primarily of science and math—over the summer holiday?

Although the books and calculators have been put away until the fall, summer opens the door to one of the best classrooms for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—the great outdoors. It also affords parents the opportunity to be a part of their child’s learning experience while enjoying quality family time. Here are a few fun (and budget friendly!) ways to incorporate STEM in common summer activities:

Do you know a college student (or very motivated/capable high schooler) that is interested in learning the ins and outs of content development and data analytics in social media?