总部位于华盛顿的博物馆，教育与研究所，Smithsonian, has unveiled a striking new exhibit to celebrateWomen’s History Month.
与旁边启动IF/THEN, an initiative designed to get more young women into STEM subjects, the ‘#IfThenSheCan’ display is composed of 120 life-sized statues of female role models in related fields. These bright orange 3D printed doppelgangers, which include a broad range of STEM innovators, are said by the Smithsonian to be the “largest collection of statues of women ever assembled together.”
“We are excited to highlight the work of these game-changing STEM innovators and help expand the narrative about who is leading in these fields,“ said Rachel Goslins, Director of the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building. “These women are changing the world and providing inspiration for the generation that will follow them.”
Getting young women into STEM
Rather than celebrate Women’s History Month as it normally does, this year, the Smithsonian has shaken things up with a ‘妇女期货月’ instead. Launched on March 5, 2022, the month-long festival is designed to encourage visitors to dream big and see themselves as ‘scientists-in-the-making,’ while meeting some of the women seeking to change the world with their research.
As the first Women’s Futures Month exhibit, #IfThenSheCan is designed to highlight the achievements of those women that have excelled in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or ‘STEM.’ These figures include contemporary female innovators from a wide range of fields, varying from those campaigning for wildlife protection to the women trying to cure cancer.
Of those immortalized in statue form, notable STEM leaders include Jessica Esquivel, one of only 150 black American women with a physics doctorate, and Karina Popovich, a student who 3D printed more than 82,000 pieces of PPE for health workers during the early stages of the pandemic, when such equipment was in especially short supply.
Speaking to今天, one of the exhibit’s other inspirational figures, Rae Wynn-Grant, a国家地理ecologist, explained how proud she was to be involved, and how visiting her statue with her daughter finally made her realize that all the hard work she’d poured into progressing within her field had paid off.
“The depth of the honor is shocking,” Wynn-Granttold Today. “In the best way possible, it’s the deepest honor. It’s beyond money or fame. There is this symbolism and reverence that is indescribable.”
在展览本身，每个雕像都装饰有独特的QR码，以便访客可以了解展示背后的人们的启发性个人故事。尽管这些妇女中有许多来自不同的领域，但他们每个人都被选为Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the group behind IF/THEN, and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Scienceto be role models for middle school-aged girls.
Said to have been selected via rigorous process that identified them as leaders in their respective fields with a commitment to inspiring the next generation, these women now serve as ambassadors, in a way that Lyda Hill, Founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, hopes will attract the attention of those girls across the US, seeking to break the mold.
“What inspires someone to dream big, reach further, leap higher?” asked Hill in a statement issued alongside the event’s launch. “‘#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit’ was a big idea that we created with the intention to reach young girls to spark their dreams and support their interest in science. We are deeply grateful to the Smithsonian to make these statues accessible to so many in our nation’s capital.”
Over the exhibit’s opening weekend, the lifelike 3D printed statues were dotted around the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, Castle and adjacent Enid A. Haupt Garden, but from now on, they’ll be placed in its National Museum of Natural History and other locations along the National Mall. Those interested in checking out the exhibit can do so between now and March 27, 2022.
TheIF/随后的STEM大使的完整列表can also be found via the Smithsonian website.
支持女性3D打印
According to the non-profit organization3D印刷中的妇女(Wi3DP), only 13% of those currently working in additive manufacturing and 11% of business owners in the industry are female. In an effort to try and rectify this imbalance, the group has therefore held events at its chapters all over the world, to give women leaders a platform on which they can share their experiences, expertise and visions.
These have become such a success, that Wi3DP has begun holding its own summit, and recently put on its second annualTIPE 3D printing Conference. The show featured an all-female keynote lineup, and contributions from over 170 global industry insiders, including representatives ofHP,桌面金属,Carbon,Henkel,Stratasysand more.
Elsewhere, a number of other 3D printing organizations have also identified and sought to address the sector’s gender gap.America Makes, for instance, has previously partnered with theGirl Scouts of Americato create aplaybook for integrating 3D printinginto scout programming, and collaborated withUltimaker也捐赠二十台打印机雷电竞app下载给美国各地学校的年轻妇女。
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特色图片显示了史密森尼的#ifthenshecan展览。图像if/then。
