Today is International Women’s Day, a worldwide celebration about the incredible contributions to society women have made throughout history. Here are a few ideas on how you can celebrate:
1. Thank a woman who inspires you.
It is always appreciated, and not done often enough. Send her a quick note and let her know that her work/advice/actions matter to you.
2. Color!
Give our Women in STEM and Women in the Manhattan Project coloring books to a young person in your life. It’s a fun way to learn about women in STEM in our history and present, like scientist Blanche Lawrence who graduated from Tuskegee University and worked as a junior biochemist on the Manhattan Project.
3. Read about women in STEM.
Read a story of a woman in STEM and her journey to her current career on Women @ Energy. Hear about her inspiration and the steps – or leaps – that she took along the way to become a STEM professional in one of our national labs, NNSA, or headquarters.
4. Listen to a woman in STEM's story.
Listen to our Ruth's story podcast episode and subscribe to Direct Current on iTunes (or wherever you listen to your podcasts). Our next episode will be all about women in clean energy! Ruth’s story is about Ruth Huddleston, and the job she took when she was 18 years old at a top secret Army facility in Tennessee turned out to be instrumental to changing the course of history.
5. Get girls connected to STEM.
Connect girls (and boys) with an event at a lab near you to learn about STEM and meet women in STEM. There’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day at Argonne National Lab near Chicago, My Amazing Future at Idaho National Laboratory, Expanding Your Horizons conference at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and many more events to choose from.
6. Get savvy on the stats.
In the U.S. Energy & Employment Report you can find figures on women’s employment in each sector of the energy workforce (did you know the electric power generation sector has the highest percentage of women?). The report was released just this week by National Association of State Energy Officials and the Energy Futures Initiative.
7. Learn more about women in energy.
Save the date and join us online on March 14 for our Women in Algae Webinar. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy will walk you through the breakthroughs in their work on making algae-based biofuel work for the U.S. transportation sector and the women behind this innovative work.
8. Get a woman in STEM recognized for her work.
Nominate a woman in clean energy to the U.S. Clean Energy Education Empowerment (C3E) Awards. She’ll be in the running for an $8,000 prize, time in the national spotlight, and recognition at our next C3E Symposium. Plus she’ll be in great company (check out past awardees here).
