Thanks to support from state Rep. Ismail Smith-Wade-El, the PA Department of Education awarded McCaskey High School $30,000 to outfit a girls’ IDEA Innovation Lab at McCaskey East. He paid a visit for the opening of the lab on Wednesday and to see the technology students are using.
“Mae Jemison, a personal hero and the first black woman in space, attended a public high school, not unlike J.P. McCaskey,” Rep. Smith-Wade-El said. “We never know where the next great scientific or cultural innovation may come from, but in supporting funding for women and girls in STEM, we open up opportunities to the young ladies in our community.”
The lab is equipped with 3D printers, virtual reality glasses, coding robots, drones, digital microscopes, and more. Students showed the representative activities in forensics, holograms, and man-made energy robots.
“The young ladies I met there,” Smith-Wade-El said, “have the drive and curiosity to make real change. Why should we get in their way?”
Karen Wynn, SDoL’s director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, said the district hopes the lab will further encourage high school girls to engage in STEM activities.
“Historically, STEM fields have been male-dominated” she said, but the school believes increasing gender diversity in STEM fields will “bring new perspectives and ideas to the workforce.”
Rep. Smith-Wade-El was accompanied by a video crew from the Pennsylvania State House to showcase the lab in conjunction with International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which is February 11.
“When we invest in STEM, when we invest in public schools, when we invest in girls, we advance our entire communities and broaden the horizons of science across frontiers once deemed final,” he said.