Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Skills acquired from studying STEM Creativity Ability to work collaboratively Disciplined thought process Problem solving skills

Women in STEM: Improving trend but still not enough. The overall proportion of girls doing STEM subjects drops off at ‘A‘ level, with lower numbers of females compared to males being entered for all STEM subjects, except Biology. Males dominated undergraduate degrees achieved in Engineering & Technology (86%), Computer Science (83%) and Architecture, Building & Planning (70%) in 2014. The number of females obtaining all Engineering and Technology degrees (8,755) has increased by 5% since 2011. The number of males has increased by only 1% in the same period. Source: ‘https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/uploads/wise/files/WISE_UK_Statistics_2014.pdf’

The Manhattan project, Trinity Test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru2PWmGIoB8

The power of E=mc2 The speed of light squared is equal to 90,000,000,000,000,000. The test you saw in the video turned less than 1g of mass into pure energy!

The Manhattan project Scientific project to create the atomic bomb. 130,000 people $26,000,000,000 in today’s money. About 20 female scientists including: Isabella Karle….chemist in the field of crystallography Anne McCusick….physicist and medical researcher. Huge collaboration between different disciplines.

Manhattan project continued Physicists: Oppenheimer, Feynmann, Fermi. Mathematician: Von Neumann Together with many other Physicists and mathematicians, working alongside chemists, engineers and medical scientists.

CERN in 3 minutes http://cds.cern.ch/record/986165

CERN Explores particles present at the beginning of the Universe. Allows us to look back in time to very close to the big bang. Notable achievement: production of the Higgs Boson, the particle responsible for giving other particles mass.

Cern statistics Has spent roughly $13,250,000,000 to date. 13,000 on site including 2,250 employees. About 1/5th of scientists are women (a lot better than the 20 on the Manhattan project but still room for improvement…) Mixture of Physicists, Engineers, Mathematicians and some Chemists and other disciplines.

Why STEM: transferable skills Looking at both Manhattan Project and Cern Collaboration Creativity Problem solving These skills can be used in many areas of life and are in great demand by employers.

STEM: transferable skills Example: ‘Banks everywhere are abandoning their pursuit of finance graduates in favour of STEM students. At Goldman Sachs, 37% of last year’s hires were STEM majors. All banks are chasing the same pool of technology students.’ --Efinancialcareers.com

Personal stories ‘The skills and discipline that I learned doing 4 STEM A levels followed by a Physics degree allowed me to become a managing director of a major investment bank and then, latterly, a teacher I am very grateful to the STEM education that I received.’

Personal stories (continued) Jennifer Business Analyst in Accenture Digital (Media & Entertainment) MSci, Chemistry University College London “My Chemistry MSci developed my ability to analyse results, conduct research and write reports. Not to mention the value of the analytical, numerical and Excel skills that are now ingrained in me!” Caroline Aerospace and Defence Management Consultant MEng, Aerospace Engineering University of Liverpool "Three years of studying engineering had taught me how to learn new concepts and find solutions under pressure."

STEM at Francis Holland STEM club….starting in next few weeks. Guest speaker programme. STEM communication prize sponsored by a major corporate. Other initiatives to be announced throughout the year.