The
Women in Natural Sciences (WINS) program at Drexel’s
Academy of Natural Sciences has been going strong for 32 years, and now a special grant from the U.S. Department of State’s
Museums Connect program is allowing a team of 15 Philly public high school girls to collaborate with 15 girls from Mongolia on a globe-spanning project.
For the last several months, the teens have been using online courses, Facebook and Skype to study climate change and its cultural impact. Then last week, four girls from the Mongolian side of the project, administered through the National Museum of Mongolia’s ROOTS program, had a whirlwind visit to Philadelphia. This July, five public high school girls from Philadelphia will reciprocate with their own two-week trip to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.
The climate change focus of the youth program is three-pronged, explains WINS manager Betsy Payne: "One is water, one is food, one is the cultural repercussions."
Currently, there are 60 girls in the WINS program citywide, but the Museums Connect dollars (administered by the American Alliance of Museums) allowed for just fifteen Mongolian girls and fifteen Philly girls. WINS sophomores and juniors were invited to apply for the program, and were selected based on a range of criteria.
"Even though it’s a one-year program, we’re hoping it has repercussions where they might be able to do more in the near future," says Payne of the age group she decided to target and applicants' dedication to the program’s offerings. The Academy was also "looking for the girls who hadn’t had other opportunities of major travel."
The lucky travelers are George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science sophomore Faatimat Sylla; junior Geré Johnson from the Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School of Philadelphia; Harleen Gonzalez, a sophomore at Central High School; Academy at Palumbo sophomore Linda Gutierrez, and Philadelphia High School for Girls junior Ti’anna Cooper.
The project’s capstone, for both teams of girls, will be a final display based on what they’ve learned in their year of cross-continental collaboration. The form it will take will be up to the students, as long as it deals with climate change and cultural exchange: a short play, a museum activity, a presentation of specimens or something else the young women devise.
The Mongolian students' U.S. trip was packed with classroom visits and science as well as some historic sight-seeing in Old City, cheesesteaks on South Street, a Lancaster farm visit, a tour of Washington, D.C. that included the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and even some good old-fashioned retail therapy at the King of Prussia Mall.
By early fall, the two intercontinental teams will develop lessons and presentations about climate change that will be incorporated into the public programming at the Academy of Natural Sciences and the National Museum of Mongolia.
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Betsy Payne, The Academy of Natural Sciences