Status of Women committee  I'm not intimately aware of what was happening at the hall of fame but what I did understand, and my bigger concern, was that there were only four nominees that were brought forward at all. The fact that there are only four nominees was a problem because we do have deep expertise in Canada, male and female.

Status of Women committee  Very quickly, I think our recommendation would be as simple as raising awareness of the breadth and diversity of opportunities. I can't tell you the number of guidance counsellors, teachers, parents, and others who have said, “I didn't know. I just didn't know.”

Status of Women committee  Some of the data we've found is I think perception-based as well, of girls thinking they don't want to necessarily work with machinery and whatnot. I'll give you an answer as a mom, actually, instead of as Let's Talk Science. I have a daughter in grade 12; well, she's in grade 11 right now, but taking a number of grade 12 courses.

Status of Women committee  Until then, she hadn't really had too many opportunities to work with equipment and to gain confidence in doing that kind of thing. When she showed up in her technology class, at the beginning the boys were not even wanting to talk to her. Three weeks in, when they realized that she could just outperform them on coming up with the CAD drawings, they started to huddle.

Status of Women committee  Yes. At this point in time, literacy and numeracy seem to be the common denominator for governments as key priorities. It's understandable and we can talk about that. What we've been trying to do is help policy-makers think about the context for teaching the literacy and numeracy skills.

Status of Women committee  Well, I personally am very unhappy that technology is not required anywhere in the country and that science is not required in grade 12, but with the caveat that just continuing to ask for more of the same is also not good. Thinking forward to what's needed for skills, attitude, and capacity development, and knowing how much information is out there, I think we have to actually rethink the skills and competencies that are needed for graduates, and it's not necessarily subject area specialization.

Status of Women committee  Right.

Status of Women committee  The funding that went into the STEM file through FedDev, to my knowledge, was $20 million over three years. It was launched as a term-delineated project, so it wasn't a surprise when the funding left. That was quite clearly articulated. What was quite reassuring in the 2014 science strategy was that the government put a quadrupling of the amount into NSERC for youth STEM initiatives.

Status of Women committee  I'll just say that the approach we've learned over the last 18 years is not so much to try to bring indigenous knowledge and put it into our programs; it's to take an approach of working with the community to understand what their local needs are and identify elders who can go with us.

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

Status of Women committee  Yes, to all of it. We have a pretty competent team that is well versed in education, being classroom teachers themselves or at various levels of administration—

Status of Women committee  Yes, a lot of volunteers. The volunteer piece is really interesting. That's the flagship program I started as a graduate student myself. It's now offered through 41 universities and colleges, with about 4,000 volunteers. It brings that experiential participation into classroom and community settings.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. I think under the banner of our “Spotlight on Science Learning” reports for the last few years, we've really had a good look at the macro level. I can say that the ministries of education from coast to coast are really interested in talking about this issue. It has become a great concern to everybody.

Status of Women committee  I think one of the biggest things to keep in mind is that there is no magic bullet. If there were, we would have figured the problem out a while ago. It's understanding what the challenges are at each age and stage, and ensuring that there is a cultural approach to it. I think one of the other pieces, too, is that at the political level, the dialogue is often segregated.

Status of Women committee  Our focus is not girls only. Our real values are access and equity. We start at age two. We have programs that are used in hundreds of child care centres across the country. A lot of what we do is working with and through educators, whether it's in the early years.... For example, hundreds of the aboriginal head start programs on reserves have used much of our early years programming.