Enriching Education: Camp Invention

Did you know that only 18 percent of patented inventors are women? The innovation “gender gap” is closing, but not nearly fast enough. According to a recent study from the Equality of Opportunity Project, it will take nearly 120 years to achieve true gender parity in STEM.
But for those of you with young daughters, this isn’t the end of the story!

In conjunction with Women’s History Month, the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® has launched the“Invent Girl Power” initiative to help close the gender gap in STEM and innovation.

Our immediate goal is to educate your readers about the importance of young girls being introduced to innovation at an early age — and more importantly, to encourage them to get the girls in their life to explore STEM.

“For a young person to decide to study a subject in college, let alone go on to work in STEM fields, they must have moments of positive connection throughout their formative years — moments where their curiosity and interest are engaged,” said Jayme Cellitioci, NIHF creativity and innovation strategist. “If we want to harvest the fruits of STEM, we must plant the seeds — and we want to plant them early.” STEM-based camps such as Camp Invention are an awesome way to introduce young girls to innovators and careers they can relate to and see themselves in. If our girls were introduced to female inventors like our boys are to male inventors, experts say the current gender gap in innovation would fall by half.