Last week DIGITS CEO Joyce Plotkin had the opportunity brief the Mass Caucus of Women Legislators on the issue of STEM – the history of STEM in Massachusetts and the status of STEM today including major accomplishments. Cited as major accomplishments of the Governor’s statewide STEM Advisory Council were the @Scale Project which endorsed 6 successful projects that have the ability to scale, the WOW public awareness campaign that features a WOW poster and video, and the national recognition that Massachusetts is a leader in STEM.
She also highlighted DIGITS as an example of state dollars at work, pointing out that DIGITS was originally funded by the state’s STEM Pipeline. Other state connections include having state engineers and scientists as volunteers and indicating that DIGITS is one of the projects recently endorsed by the state’s @Scale Project.
Five women legislators, including Senator Karen Spilka, Representatives Cory Atkins, Alice Wolf, Sarah Peake, and Gailanne Cariddi, along with 20-30 staffers from other legislative offices, attended the session.
In defining the challenge of STEM, Joyce showed the chart below which illustrates that Massachusetts ranks BELOW other states in the percentage of high school students who take the SATs and express interest in STEM careers. DIGITS was developed to address this issue – the lack of student interest in STEM.
For more photos from the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators STEM Update at the State House, go to http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.336544106366978.76637.207394045948652&type=1 .
