Right off the bat, the thing that truly caught my attention during our Futureworks Makerspace virtual visit was that out two speakers were women. Growing up, I would always see that the mad scientists, or the lab geniuses were always men. Very rarely would I see a woman in charge of a lab or anything STEM related really. It truly made me happy when our speakers, Maggie and Emily, talked about the ways they like to reach out and inspire young girls to pursue a career in STEM. Many times, girls are encouraged to go into non-STEM fields because doing anything else may be seen as not being feminine enough. I will say that things have gotten way better in the past couple years but there is still a huge gender gap in STEM. Even if a young girl isn’t necessarily pushed against a field in STEM, if she is not exposed to it, she may never know if that's something she may even want to pursue. The fact that the Futureworks Makerspace is getting involved and exposing young girls and children of color to different STEM careers, is amazing. These are the types of efforts that we need in order to bring more diversity and develop incredible minds to the future.
I also find it very admirable that despite everything going on, and despite the fact that their work force was forced to shrink due to distancing laws, Futureworks Makerspace found a way to collaborate and contribute to COVID-19 response efforts. With the severity of everything that we are dealing with right now, especially with New York being one of the states with the highest number of cases and deaths, what this Makerspace is doing is that much more important.
