hello everyone my name is roger colton and i'd like to welcome you today to community conversations through the community conversations podcast we hope to bring varying parts of the belmont community to the public we hope to make the process of learning about belmont not only educational but fun as well for today's show i've invited cindy meyer to join us cindy is a belmont resident in creator of the boston tech mom web site  boston tech mom web site is can be found just like that boston tech mom no spaces no underscores no dots dot com cindy not only has two girls in the public schools but she offers advice on promoting stem education through the boston metropolitan area cindy welcome to community conversations and thank you for being willing to talk with me on today's show toppy be here i've already use the word stem we're just starting here so we're going to talk about that word a lot let's define and a little bit if we could stem i think is science technology engineering and math that's right it's an acronym so it stands for the areas of study of science technology engineering math and it's become a common education term to help connect those four areas of study and it was coined in the early two thousand it's become more widely used in the last eight to ten years and i break it down into two segments you have stem education we're trying to teach kids and educate them on these four areas and then you have a step workforce and that's where you're taking what you've learned appalling your knowledge to jobs in these four different fields and tell me a little bit about boston technique how did that how did that come about sure my purpose there my mission is to help parents and spier their kids to get excited and learn about stem and i started it for a couple of reasons one i truly believe in stem education and getting kids exposed to and interested and learning about stem at an early age and i think their early component is really important because that allows you to explore and learn in a fun way enriching and hopefully come away with a positive experience and my goal is to get some confidence growing and to turn kids on to stem rather than off and i also started from a personal experience my oldest daughter who's a th grader at the high school showed a curiosity for technology in an early age so she's that kid who loves lego she likes to build things you know play with robots rockets computer games you name it and when i saw that i want to foster that inquisitiveness because i could see it being something that she would pursue later in life so it's been my quest to be on the lookout for toys when she was young and activities and camps and things that she could participate in order to explore that interest and believe or not it was hard to find and here in the boston area with amazing universities a really rich technology base of companies but i had to a lot of research and exploration and some trial and error to find things for her to to participate him so i've been doing this now for quite a few years and a few years back i thought why don't i take my experience and help share those those programs the high quality ones with parents make it a little bit easier for them if they want to encourage their kids to explore stem so when you go on my website what you're going to find are high quality programs you know about them out as much as possible activities clubs camps and things that your kids can participate in and there's something for everybody and it really comes down to what your child's interests are their learning style and what they want to get out of it and for all ages i think th it's a high school thing and it's not a middle school thing but there is stem education for young care absolutely so i don't think you can start early enough i'd say if you go on my website my focus is definitely k to twelve and getting kids prepped for college but i think their early exposure can start when you're preschooler and what i would do is you know get those quality stem toys read i'm a big believer in reading and you know read to read the stories about the inventors and the scientists the world  made a difference i think a lot of hands on to your self activities are encouraging and i don't think you need to tell your kids they're playing with a stem toy it's just getting that exposure and big fan a lego set but today more and more i'm seeing really cool innovative stem toys come out little bits for electronics exploration and a lot more for girls which is very heartwarming to see and couple the products out there that are popular goldie blox for young girls building toys which i call it's a design engineering toy with a dollhouse focus the lego line brought out their friends brand a couple years ago so it's a lot more focus on getting girls engaged in you know encouraging to explore step maybe in ways that are more interesting to them textbook was titled physics for poets and that's probably been out of out of print for for decades but i've always thought of stan as being robotics in computers and things like that b b you're talking about lego's and it is there's something a little more fundamental but what you mean when you talk about stem yes not robotics i mean i think it is a broad term to encompass these four areas and i think too when you go into the workplace and when you're solving the big problems that we face today with health care and with the environment they're going to compass all these different fields so maybe you're focused on one particular area maybe you know a mechanical engineer but you know you can be working alongside the scientists and the software programmers i think that from what i hear talking to parents and educators that when you're young you say to a child you want to be an engineer they don't really know what that means it's again a broad field and sometimes there's misconceptions about what it is it's an older guy often yes what you know young girls in a white lab coat building bridges and they're not interested in that and we've learned that the attitudes are for and very early so i think that early exposure to those toys and programs and classes and talking to people about their jobs and what's interesting exciting the problems are solving i personally think that's a way to get kids more invested and interested and find something that they can relate to and then they you know think oh ok there's so much possibility in this in this area you know you've mentioned this a couple of times or mentioned the the notion of having young with withstand is there a i don't know whether to say advantage to having young kids or a disadvantage of not starting stem education until later let you go either way on that so what the data showing is that if kids aren't exposed at the young age and they're not interested by high school they're not likely to pursue these fields in college and beyond and can i interrupt for so we talk about a young age are we talking kindergarten  talking preschool are we talking th grade really and you know starting definitely elementary age because you're often again those attitudes are formed in middle school you're starting to see often girls dropping out of considering being in the stem fields and math so you know i think the earlier is going to be better we can't just hope as a country that kids you know suddenly in college are going to say i want to major computer science i want to be a scientist you need to cultivate that that interest and encouragement i keep saying encouragement because i don't know if we do enough of that we teach very well great science you know and math programs but i think there's more we can do to supplement and compliment what's learned in the classroom even outside of the classroom there i'm an  focus on words and i hear three words throughout when i have been reading and listening to people talk about stem i hear it as you just said stem education that's one word by the way i hear encouragement and i hear exposure is there a difference between those we want to expose who is the most because they might not even be aware of what's out there i think that's the problem or the challenge is that when you say science technology engineering engineering math what is it really need to be you know what kind of job can i move into what kind of problem could i be solving they're too broad so i think that's really start to bring it down to that level of where you're talking about industries and products i would like to work on the next i phone you know and make the battery life you know work longer would you like to bring clean water to a developing nation do you want to help people with disabilities you know be able to you know develop the robotics arms and legs so i think when you start to bring it down to that level where you can paint the picture of what you would be doing to me that's a lot more interesting than just saying i want to be an engineer so when i i'm hearing you say is that stem as a means to an end or stem education stem exposure is the question is not do you want to be a mathematician do you want to be an engineer it's do you want to be involved with helping to solve this problem or that problem i do have that's how i would approach it and so i think you've got the exposure which needs to happen st you need to be encouraging people to learn and explore and experiment try different things out and then obviously need that the education which where you're getting that that knowledge and those skills that you can then apply later in life wonderful i have i would like to take a little detour here for a minute because i know you heard before that it's difficult to get girls interested in science technology engineering and math is that true or is that one of those urban myths that it's sexist even to think that it's difficult to get girls involved with with science technology engineering and math you're right it is the truth it's not a myth and it's also ok to be talking about this out the open it's common knowledge and what's exciting and heartening to see is that there's a lot of conversation dialogue educators government nonprofits parents coming together to address this issue and it's all about again that encouragement at their early level and exposure and what i'm seeing more and more in the last five years is a lot of girl only development programs so i'm absolutely not against any kind of gender mixing because that's what we're all going to face in the workforce but there are some wonderful programs today there are developed just for girls and one of them is girls who code which is a nonprofit coding program just started in two thousand and twelve they already have free c programs across the country for girls and six to th grade and their sole goal is to get girls involved in learning computer science and they do it in a very nurturing environment it's all about teamwork and collaboration you can have no experience coming into the program you can be can have experience so really a wide range and then they bring in mentors from the community men and women who are there to teach and guide and are these middle school kids i apologize for calling middle schoolers and high schoolers kids  because they're starting to be young adults but yes are these math sixteen hour focus because they know chicken or programs for girls six to twelve in grade six to twelve so i did bring some stats with me today women account for fifty seven percent of the bachelor's degrees in the country but we are very under represented in stem eighteen percent computer science degrees one thousand percent engineering one thousand and fifty six we're doing better in math and stats of forty three so girls who code has identified that as a problem and a challenge that they want to raise the level of women interested going into comps i in college and then pursuing those careers because without that diversity we're missing their talents and their perspective and so it's nice to see that there is a big emphasis across the country on getting girls and women involved and also supporting them through college and the workforce not just in the early years but what i heard you saying is can you give me those those numbers to get us a fifty women account for fifty seven percent of the bachelor's degrees in the country so more than fifty percent but in the degrees of comp side computer science eighty percent ninety percent engineering and one thousand percent of physics forty three percent of math and stats and the one of the messages i hear from you or i hear through the stem folks that i talk with is addressing this disparity isn't a matter of high school guidance counselors you know it goes way back to kindergarten absolutely and have in the the girls playing with lego yes and so i'll give you one example my daughter she's a th grade at the high school where your th grader you can start to take engineering technology elective courses there's only two girls in her technology engineering class to th grade and belmont which is such a strong talking today with cindy wright meyer and cindy is creator of the boston tech mom dot com website we're talking about stem education stem stands for science technology engineering and math onto the schools and i guess what i'm asking is what role do parents play what role do people who give christmas presents and grandparents play and exposing kids to stem and exposing girls and encouraging girls to be involved i do think there's a lot of stakeholders involved and we can't put all the responsibility on the schools so i really see five key key supporters you have to educate the educators the government companies the nonprofits out there and the parents so i think the challenge that the the teachers in the curriculum developers face is making sure that that curriculum and that knowledge being taught is current and fresh technology is changing so fast today that the companies need to be talking with the educators to make sure that they are teaching the right topics and giving them a hands on experience that are going to prepare them for the workforce and i think that's that's a challenge the government's there support in my mind you know the education industry and then as well as making sure that we're focusing on those under represented groups so women and minorities i think companies can continue to play a much bigger role i just attended the massachusetts stem summit last weekend wester and you had a lot of educators there is over a one thousand people a lot of companies and the companies are raising their hand is that we have a shortage of skilled workers so what can be done you know working with the teachers to make sure the curriculum is up to date i think offering internships even at the high school level if you have a motivated kid who's interested i think getting that exposure before you enter the workforce is so helpful shadowing where you let the kids come into work and see what the daily life of rogers like you know what is the scientists do what does a software engineer do and given that exposure and i think bringing those companies into the communities into the classrooms into the libraries and talking with kids about what you do not just i'm an engineer but what do you like what lights you up you know what do you what's the impact that you're having in your role and i know for me when you bring it down to that level it's just much more interesting than talking about a broad a broad area like engineering but you know making it real and exciting i think is going to go a long way to hooking kids and getting their interest and is there is there a potential problem of parents pushing too hard and let me tell you that the thought behind the thought  there because it seems like there's a tension between not pushing i don't know if pushing is the right word but pushing hard math i know my parents i had a lot of exposure to music education and my parents pushed me to take piano lessons and i successfully when i was a kid and i successfully resisted that and now forty years later fifty years later i for ever have rued the fact that i didn't take piano lessons and i didn't listen to my parents is there a balance between pushing the kids and letting the kids make make their own decisions on what they want to do absolutely that stuff my parenting style so that's you haven't heard me use the word push it's encouraged exposed and so one of my missions is to raise awareness for stem for parents so we understand where where things are headed and you know i do believe that the innovation and in our our world are going to come out of these fields so we need to be aware that there's high quality paying jobs very rewarding work that can come out of that so from a parent perspective it always comes down to understanding your child and their interest and if you go on my website i've got so many wonderful programs there is something for everyone that you can see something that might spur on your child who is already invested in stem and wants to do more maybe deeper in one area or learn something new but it's also for the child that has an exposure and maybe you as a parent think this  important why don't you try a summer camp in in engineering design or you know where about technology and fashion there's a lot of really cool things that don't have to be overt on stem where they're having fun they're learning and you never know where that that interest in spark is going to come from i'd like to talk for a minute about your web your website in the website that we're talking about is boston tech mom stuff we have a holiday  winter holiday vacation coming up and december and i say we the public schools in general are there and let's set aside the purchasing aspects of it are there camps are  there kids have two or three weeks off maybe not three weeks two weeks off for winter vacation or their stamp camps there are so there are i am a big proponent of summer i think that's a wonderful time because you're out of school and you have the time to go a little deeper and something that maybe you have a big supposed to so there's a wide variety a wide breath of classes off in the summer but some of the local organizations there's an einstein is workshop and power studios are both local burlington and lexington and those organizations more and more offering weeklong camps during the school vacation weeks so that again is a great opportunity if you know your children have some time to introduce expose them something that you know maybe they haven't done before and parents can find out about that by going to your web site that are there other places you go to it is their place at the school to go to the principal's office you go to your me math teacher i absolutely would always stay in touch with a teacher so you know talk with as a parent again i'm not an engineer i'm not a scientist but when you find out your kids interests go to those experts heaters the guidance counselors talk to people in the in the in the community who work for these kind of companies they will be able to make you aware of other programs that's how i've learned about so many of them myself our library have to put out a special shout out to them is very supportive of stem programming the belmont that i want library i think libraries in general really are on the forefront because they're hungry and looking for programming in their community art and engineering and i can tell you that if you have an interest as a parent in some type of programming in this area please approach the director the children's director the team librarian they are they are all open and or you know you can reach out to me i'd be happy to discuss that with you but proud to say that they started the girls who code program in our town last year at the library and at the risk of perhaps being repetitive where we're not talking about high school kids here we're talking about middle school kids they're the six through twelve for girls who code six to three through th ok but if you go on my website the programs that i promote and find range really from k through twelve and also put out a strong shout out there's a lot of wonderful programs run by mit we're very fortunate just have them down the road and the programs are often free or very fordable which i like so i get it's low risk way to get into stem i would also check out our p t o programs you know each of the schools have wonderful after school richmond programs and what i've noticed in the last five plus years is a much bigger emphasis and focus on bringing in stem programming and i think that's great because low risk high opportunity it doesn't cost a lot and get a couple your friends with you maybe if you're a little shy or hesitant and go try something new we've been talking primarily about out of school programs which is actually an insight i 've always thought of stem education as being a school function but it sounds like a lot of it is camps and clubs and just activities i don't want to leave the schools out of it or am i wrong is do the schools have less of a role then no i think they're really there that they're the they're fat they're the foundation but i think obviously the school days limited in what you can teach and the stem fields are so vast and so i think that anything that i'm suggesting is really complimenting enhancing what you're learning in school i will say in belmont we are obviously very strong in the science and math and then we start to offer technology engineering classes to all kids come th grade six th and th graders a generally take technology engineering and they get introduction to things like technical drawing computer programming the engineering design process and then once you become a th grader at the high school in the electives you can start to take summer classes so as i mentioned i daughters taking engineering design there's intro to coding a p physics and there's some really cool science classes come your senior year that you can take like neuro science or things with environmental science what i would like to see and i think we've got opportunities to introduce more those engineering and robotics and the programming at the elementary level based on my experience that's not part of the curriculum today and we don't have anything in th tonight so i would love to see it from k to twelve you know all the way through and how do you teach engineering to a th grader what does what does that mean you know again that's a broad topic i you know i'll give you an example there's a program called the  robotics it's a internationally renowned robotics program where they're teaching engineering robotics the design process problem solving in also a very team collaborative and friendly competition way and in our town if you're interested we have a lot of programs at the elementary and middle school level and these are run by parents generally out of the house what i would like to see is i would like to see a st robotics program started at the high school so that all those kids are so interested right now we're building up that interest can then move into the next level of high school and right now we don't have one but our peers do so our new high school and lexington have that that's an opportunity like to see to help round out that the engineering are there pare nt groups that bring their their kids together so let's assume for a moment that i have a rd grader and i'm interested in exposing my rd grade and for the moment let's it does make any difference whether my rd graders a boy or girl but i'm interested and in exposing him or her to something more than they get in the schools or their parent groups that i could contact not parent only groups that i'm aware of but the st robotics would be the closest to that because parent led yeah the student and you know it with based with the students i would  say a lot of the library programs that you can attend and you don't have to just go to the belmont library you can you can attend these programs at any the libraries in the area do that with your kids and then there's a lot of wonderful programs on weekends one of the ones i promote is the mit science on saturdays they run them at lincoln labs and they run them down on the mit campus and they're wonderful different topics every time chemistry biology engineering and definitely when you go to that it's for younger kids and their parents attend so it's a nice it's a nice family event like to look forward for just a brief moment sometimes i have i actually have objected to the stress that kids are put under to become to always be looking for how to set themselves up for a university education and a career but i think we need to talk about careers if if kids don't get the exposure and the education and the encouragement to science technology engineering and math where are they dealing themselves out of i think they're dealing themselves out of really rewarding careers with good pay which is important for you know our future as a country and the economy and you know i think if you don't know about something that it's really hard potentially to pick that up in college and start to go down that path there are some things that you can do to help yourself i think in high school to be prepared some different classes and you know just talking again with your guidance counselors your teachers on how best to prepare yourself not saying you can't go down that path come college but i think having some that knowledge of what you need to be prepared for and getting some advice from people gone down that that path is going to help  you is there anything in particular that you think that the belmont schools do not have i mean to sort of put you on the spot here is there anything in particular that the belmont schools you believe do not have that they should be interested introducing i mean this is a a an issue for parents to approach the school committee in such a how do you know issue because it's a budgeting issue and are there things you would recommend not recommend but wish for yeah as i mentioned earlier i'd love to see more programming in engineering and the coding in the elementary school and introduction there so not just relying maybe on the p t o after school enrichment programs but incorporating that into into the daily curriculum and then again offering classes from k to twelve so my daughter didn't have an opportunity to take anything like that in th grade and you know if that's an opportunity as elective i think that's a good thing for the students well thank you thank you very much where we're running short on time here i would like to give you an opportunity if there was a message that you could communicate to the parents your website is boston tech mom  dot com so it seems like your your interest is parent oriented but if there was a message to communicate to the parents of belmokhtar or beyond what would that message be you know i'm a big believer in exploration experimentation of having fun so i don't want this to be where you say you're pushing a kid to a certain area it is just letting them know the opportunities out there and it's low risk try things out and you may be pleasantly surprised what you find you're interested in and that could send you on a path that could be very rewarding and satisfying in life thank you it's speaking of fun it's been fun today i have not traditionally known a lot about science technology education and math and the stem set of interests and in classes in education and i suspect that there are a lot of other folks who are in my situation i appreciate you taking the time to be here i would hope that you would consider joining us again someday perhaps as the summer approaches and people are trying to figure out what to do as far as camps and summer activities are concerned it sounds like that could be a whole program into itself we've been talking today with president cindy wright my or cindy created in administered a website called boston tech mom dot com listeners can access that site simply w w w boston tech mom dot com no dashes no underscores no nothing i would like to thank you cindy for joining us today and i would think like to think you the listeners for tuning in today you can listen to this podcast my access to an it on line w w w media dot org or by accessing it online at w w w dot wicked local belmont dot com you can also download us from i tunes by searching for the b m c podcast network i would encourage our listeners to both stay tuned to the  media center and to read the weekly bound citizen herald our host in our sponsor of this podcast for continuing information about events going on throughout the town of i'm your host roger col thank you again for listening and i will talk to you again in two weeks