Women in STEAM Empowerment Luncheon based on Neon Museum in Warsaw

In 2018, I created and ran a motivational luncheon for every female calculus student at White Plains High School, and it was a smashing success!

https://www.missionmathematics.com/about

The pandemic forced us to cancel our third year. And when I decided to reinstate it, I was told that the way that it had been run violated Title IX, as only women had been invited.

I canceled my plans, and my girls were disappointed. I told them I would do SOMETHING, although I didn't know exactly what, until I discovered the Neon Museum.

The result was an investigation into the following essential questions:

"How do the stories of the hidden women neon artist designers of neon in communist era Poland connect to the history of women in STEM?

"How does the journey of these women mirror a woman’s journey in a male-dominated industry like mathematics, technology, science, and engineering?

"How does this connection inform and impact the choices of rising female students of STEM disciplines?"

I was underfunded and didn't have the time I wanted to do all that I wanted to do, but for an inaugural run, it went really well and was very well-received by the ladies in the group!

They were a great and motivated group, had excellent things to say and excellent suggestions for improvement.

Looking forward to spending more time developing this into a longer-length project I plan on discussing the project with the museum as well as the exhibit creator, to get better photos of the schematics and permissions to share this with other schools in America and Poland is well.

A week after it was over, I received this request for guidance from a young lady regarding her math future; I was so honored she chose to talk to me, considering I was not her math teacher.

This has given me the idea to start a mentoring group for some of the students in the school who need a "math mentor." Math tutors are easy to come by, but math cheerleaders are not.

A big thank you to the White Plains Parent Teacher Association for the funding, Angela Williams for taking on the group with me, and Albert Laporte for his support!

A little snippet of the luncheon can be found here: https://youtu.be/L_7SfqmdU0Y