Status of Women committee  Thank you very much for inviting me to address the committee about developing STEM talent. As the founding president of Let's Talk Science, I personally have spent the past two decades working to ensure that Canadian youth are prepared to thrive in this country, enjoy a high qual

Status of Women committee  You'll get it, then, because it was sent.

Status of Women committee  I will make sure to send them.

Status of Women committee  Perfect, so I'll give you a few of the highlights. You don't need to be reading through the report right now. It will be sent to the clerk for sure. We found that overall 88% of teen girls and 79% of teen boys felt that women could find great satisfaction in a STEM-related caree

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 examp

Status of Women committee  Through the brand IdeaPark and Wings of Discovery, we have a real skills-based orientation. Young children would be looking at their natural environment and learning to ask really good questions, whether it's in the playground or in the park, and learning to explore. Actually, al

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 an

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 be

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

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 wi

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

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

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,

Status of Women committee  Right.