On Saturday 8 February, 100 excited girls aged 7-12 came to our Junior School Leidschenveen campus to participate in a g4g Day. This free event is organised by greenlight 4 girls, a non-profit, volunteer organisation dedicated to encouraging young girls to study STEM and consider careers in these subjects.
The girls participated in a full programme of fun, STEM-related workshops with professionals from the following organisations: NATO Communications and Information Agency and European Medicines Agency (initiators of this event), European Space Agency, Emerson, Women in Aviation, CoderDojo, and the Police of The Hague.
Many g4g Days have been organised globally but this was the first one in The Netherlands. Judging by the positive reactions from the girls, their parents and the wider community, it will be the first of many. Places for this event went quickly and there was a long waiting list, proving there is a great demand for this sort of initiative.
The girls, appropriately attired in lab coats, had the opportunity to: play ‘Maths Twister’; solve a cybercrime (someone hacked into The British School in The Netherlands’ systems and changed all the grades to A!); extract their own DNA; build paper aeroplanes and learn about Aviation; fly drones; learn to code; create their own medicine, and many more activities.
At the end of the day, energy levels were still high and the girls were excited to share their learning. After having seen what is possible, many new career aspirations have been formed, making this g4g Day a resounding success.
STEM subjects form part of the curriculum in all three Junior schools at The British School in The Netherlands. Science is a key aspect of learning in after school clubs too. We include computing and coding for all students, working with Micro:bits and scratch as great investigative tools along with other robots and coding languages too. Our Engineering at Junior school level is represented in Design Technology with a variety of construction projects. Maths is the most familiar of the STEM subjects. The Junior schools are also recognising Women in Science this week with a variety of lessons across the curriculum.
.png&command_2=resize&height_2=85 "BSN Students Share Their Visions for the Future at WeSpeak")
