Teen interviews science role models: Emily Koehne’s presentation

Use this inspiring video to persuade pupils to interview STEM women themselves and create their own videos.

It is about a teenager Emily Koehne, senior at the Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington, N.J., who actively searches out female Role Models in STEM and shares her interviews with them on her own YouTube channel. She entered a contest run by Marvel and the National Academy of Sciences that challenged girls to create videos answering STEM-based questions. Emily created a video in which she 3-D printed a doll named “STEMily” with whom she discussed problems of women in STEM. The teen searched the internet for women in STEM to interview and succeeded in highlighting unique STEM careers that girls are often unaware of. Emily posted the interviews on STEMilyK.org so girls can have a panel of women in STEM Role Models available to them.

This material could be used as a project based learning activity. Following Emily’s successful on-line videos/blog girls would like to involve themselves in interviewing local or national women Role Models and showing the results or creating a YouTube account or a Blog. The power of example is strong enough to inspire others. Students are generally creative and field work for interviewing local women Role Models or on-line interviewing will lend itself well to collaborative project based learning. It would have to be a semester extra-curricular activity for volunteers.