Director’s Corner

Theodore Hodapp

Many have tried, but success seems to be just beyond our reach. Is this controlled fusion, or peace in the Middle East? No, but still a vexing problem, and one we all care about: the appalling lack of representation by women in physics. Simply put, we are missing out on a bunch of really smart people, and in these times of a growing tech economy and uncertain H1-B visa restrictions, we need to attract a workforce that comes from men and women. The data are pretty clear: young women are getting the message that physics and engineering are for the “boys.” This is clear from numerous studies showing gender differentiation from an early age. So what can be done that will actually move the needle on this issue?

Zahra Hazari, one of the top researchers in gender and physics, is leading a newly funded effort that includes Florida International University, Texas A&M Commerce, AAPT, and the APS. We are working collectively to design, test, and disseminate a portion of high school curriculum that integrates with teachers’ lesson plans to recognize and compliment young women in the classroom, discuss critical representation issues with students, and individually encourage them to study physics. If we get just one more woman to major in physics each year from every 10th high school classroom in the country, we fix the problem.

We will be working with master teachers from across the country to develop our research-based strategies. The critical pieces of this will be working with teachers at local and national scales to understand how to get the information to them and then helping them implement it. We are going to mobilize as many resources as we can find including APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics, teachers who use the widely implemented modeling curriculum, members of AAPT, and our large network of schools in the PhysTEC program. If you have other ideas, please contact me (hodapp@aps.org). This will be a big effort over the next five years, but it is the first one I have seen that I think has a real chance to impact this problem.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.