PDA

View Full Version : Roominate Gets Girls Excited About Architecture and Engineering



KC
02-04-2014, 04:55 PM
Seems like a good idea to me!

http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/08/26/so-long-barbie-dream-house-new-dollhouse-aims-get-girls-excited-about


When Jennifer Kessler, Alice Brooks, and Bettina Chen were first-year masters students at Stanford, they couldn’t help but notice a striking absence of women in their math and science classes. Wanting to inspire an enthusiasm for the hard sciences in younger generations of girls, the women created Roominate, a buildable toy dollhouse that teaches kids about subjects like architecture and engineering, their website reports (http://www.roominatetoy.com/roominates-story.html).

Roominate is a stackable set of dollhouse rooms, made for girls ages 6-10. Each set includes build-your-own furniture, circuit boards, color-coded wires and a mini-motor to operate lights, fans and buzzers. Once girls decide on an overall structure for their houses, they can choose to wire each room for light or electronics, take apart and reassemble the customizable furniture, and even change the wallpaper as they see fit.


As Alice Brooks explained to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/garden/roominate-a-dollhouse-wired-to-teach-girls-science.html?_r=1), “…we could trace the initial spark for our interest in math and science to the toys that we played with.” (Brooks’ bio says as a child, she received a saw from her father in lieu of the Barbie she requested.)


The core idea behind Roominate is that math, science and engineering are ways of thinking, which can be made familiar to children through early exposure in the form of hands-on play. According to Roominate’s website, the toy uses creativity to teach girls circuitry, spatial perception, planning, and critical thinking. It even promotes green living, as its purposely short-lived battery encourages energy conservation.



http://www.takepart.com/sites/default/files/Roominate 1 from website.JPG

nathanbforrest45
02-04-2014, 07:28 PM
Cool idea. The only thing I see the feminazi's going berserk about with this is that it centers around the home. Now, if it were designing solar collector stations or Formula One race cars they might give full approval but I can see them saying this is just hi tech playing dolls.

Personally, I need to look into this for my grand daughter.

KC
02-04-2014, 10:44 PM
Cool idea. The only thing I see the feminazi's going berserk about with this is that it centers around the home. Now, if it were designing solar collector stations or Formula One race cars they might give full approval but I can see them saying this is just hi tech playing dolls.

Personally, I need to look into this for my grand daughter.

I think where it has the potential for success is it's use of the home, which helps it to adapt to preconceived notions of gender identity, while still doing something about the gap in math and sciences that many feminists complain about.