We teamed up with Sunsilk to help ‘Rethink Pink’ with FREE school holiday workshops to equip mums and girls to support each other in learning more about STEM careers.
Sooo, WHAT IS STEM?
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM learning brings these subjects together to help us understand the world, and prepare for future possibilities and careers.
Whether your daughter wants to be a Games Designer, Climate Scientist, CEO, Geologist or just navigate the world of the future – increasing STEM skills is incredibly important to their overall success – and Girl Geek Academy is committed to helping wherever we can.
Why are STEM careers important?
“Gender inequality in STEM industries limits progress and innovation. The experiences of diverse women and girls is crucial in solving the problems that shape our lives. We need more women and girls in STEM to play a vital role in solving the world’s future challenges.”
SARAH MORAN
Girl Geek Academy CEO
Learn new things together with other families across Australia and New Zealand. You’re invited to learn practical STEM skills together through a series of FREE fun & interactive online workshops.
Week 1 (NSW, VIC & ACT school holidays)
Science: Tuesday 21 September
Technology: Thursday 23 September
Week 2 (Australia all states school holidays)
Engineering: Tuesday 28 September
Maths: Thursday 30 September
Week 3 (NZ, SA, WA, TAS, NT school holidays)
Science: Tuesday 5 October
Engineering: Thursday 7 October
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?
The workshops will run over the September/October school holidays and will feature 4 different modules.
THE SCIENCE OF HAIR
We all know the importance of washing our hands but why do we clean our hair and how does it work? How strong is our hair? Do different products affect our hair in different ways? Let’s explore the surprises of science in something as simple as our hair.
ENGINEERING EMPOWERED
In this workshop we’ll be teaching you how to create a shampoo bottle using 3D modelling. From the initial design concept through to the physical product development, you’ll walk away with a ‘Rethink Pink’ shampoo bottle engineered solely by you!
TECH FOR TWO
Give “Pink” a new perspective by creating your own two-player videogame, snazzed up with a fantastic pink colour pallet (that we’ll be choosing!). Together, we’ll learn how to create the code, and draw how the game will actually look. This beginner friendly workshop is the perfect way for mums and girls to learn tech together.
MATHS FOR THE REAL WORLD
Maths is used for LOTS of different things, but often at school it can feel a bit like we only ever use it in the classroom. In this session, we’ll be learning how you use maths in the real world! We’ll teach you how to create a plan and we can all use maths to bring our ideas to life.
WHY Sunsilk
and GIRL GEEK ACADEMY?
Our shared goal to increase the number of women and girls in STEM
Sunsilk is on a mission to inspire women and girls alike. Our research shows young girls are feeling a career in STEM is not achievable for them. Through our partnership with Girl Geek Academy and Sunsilk’s Rethink Pink campaign, we aim to bring mums and daughters together to better understand the career pathways available to them in STEM industries.
JOIN US FOR THE WORKSHOP SERIES
These workshops are free to girls and their mums / role models from Australia and New Zealand. We warmly welcome anyone who identifies as women or non-binary.
Register your details below, and we’ll send you more information before the first event in September.
FAQ
We recommend using a computer/laptop for these sessions, as that’s what we’ve designed the workshops for. The activities we’ll be doing are all web based, so you won’t need to worry too much about computer hardware capabilities!
If you only have access to an iPad/tablet, you will still be able to participate, but please keep in mind the workshops are really designed for a computer. If this is what you will be using, make sure to open the Youtube stream on your web browser, with the activities open in a separate tab (to make sure you can hear the workshop while doing the activity!).
Regardless of what hardware you’re using, you will need an internet connection to participate. All workshops and their respective activities can be done through the browser, so no need to worry about downloads! The only things you’ll need to sign up for are the workshops themselves (signup link above!) and if you’re attending the Engineering session, you will need a free Tinkercad account. You can sign up for Tinkercad, free here.
In these sessions girls learn amazing things about STEM from the women* closest to them. Our survey revealed mums need to feel supported in being a STEM role model to their daughter, so the focus of these workshops is to create a space for that to happen. We strongly encourage you to prioritise inviting the women in your daughters life to do the workshop together with her, for example grandmas, aunties, neighbours are other role models you might like to invite along.
This means your daughter will see that women can do STEM, because they did it with a woman they know. We do however understand in certain circumstances a woman may not be available and we appreciate sometimes a woman role model may not be available.
Yes, we’d love to have you join us in all our workshops! However, that doesn’t mean you have to come to every session – each workshop is designed to be its own thing, so you can tune in to the workshops that sound cool to you!