I’ve always loved a strong, female role model. As I was growing up, Princess Leia (ably portrayed by the late Carrie Fisher) was that for me. Not only was she in control but she was pretty handy with a tool box and fixing the Millenium Falcon. With the advent of the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi film, it is great to see that they have continued with girls and science in the form of the characters Rey and Rose.

Their representations present a fantastic opportunity to inspire more girls into STEM and EDF Energy are encouraging this with Pretty Curious. A STEM Program for girls in science.

Just one in four people working in core STEM roles in the UK are women. EDF Energy has set an ambition that 30% of its STEM graduate and apprenticeship intake will be women by 2018.

This number has already been exceeded in 2017. The intake has grown by 35% – but there is still more to do. Pretty Curious is continuing its mission to encourage girls to pursue STEM-based subjects at school and in their future.

Grace and her love of Maths and Science

Ever since she started school, Grace has shown a keen interest in maths and anything scientific. It has helped that many of her form teachers were also heads of maths across the years.

Her last year of her first school was probably when we realised what a keen interest and natural ability she had for numbers. Her mental arithmetic was – and still is – better than mine. It is something that we have continued to encourage as she entered middle school and science subjects started to be introduced into her curriculum.

Encouraging Grace

Grace is now in her second year of middle school and was the second person in the year to achieve the accolade mathematician of the week. She can memorise and recite up to 22 prime numbers (I wouldn’t even know where to start!) and continues to do well.

She is now enjoying science and her school report cited her as excellent in this subject.

Her favourite of the sciences is Biology and she recently completed a project where she not only named different parts of the body from A to Z but she also made models of them all too. On top of this, she also knows the function for each part. She was one of only 6 in her year to receive a head teacher’s commendation for this work. She also appears to enjoy chemistry as she is big slime enthusiast and is regularly using the bathroom floor to come up with new concoctions.

Thanks to EDF Energy and the Pretty Curious programme, she will be aware of the possibilities that loving STEM bring to her in terms of very interesting careers in the future.

Grace’s use of the Pretty Curious Programme

Pretty Curious is now entering its third year, and is focused on inspiring girls to pursue STEM-related subjects at school and in their future careers. The campaign has given girls a real sense of what it might be like to work in STEM careers by providing hands-on experiences and digital content, which you can take part in on the website.

Grace and I have been through the resources on this website. These are as follows:

Future Me avatar and quiz
Grace has created her own personalised avatar and the STEM-related career avatar. She chose all the aspects of her features, clothing and the setting she would like to be in. She was given the career of Biotechnologist and this is how she looks:

Coincidentally she also took their easy personality quiz to see what career may be best suited to her. Again, she was given Biotechnologist.

As we read the description of the position together, Grace became more and more interested. Over the last few years she has expressed her interest in being a vet but wasn’t so keen on operating on animals. This role means that she gets the best of both worlds and it also fuels her interest in plants and helping others too.

Virtual reality film
On the Pretty Curious site you can watch 360º videos to experience a day in the life of the architect of the Shard, see what it’s like to work on a wind farm or explore the offices of a software developer with everyday amazing women. These were all fascinating to Grace and a real inspiration for her too.

Parents quiz
Ross and I both took the new parents quiz to see if we could assess which STEM-related career would best suit Grace.

In it you identify your child’s strengths, as well as discovering information and guidance on pursuing a career in that particular role once you receive your results. My suggestion came up with Laboratory Technician for her – but guess what Ross got? That’s right. Biotechnologist!

How Pretty Curious has affected Grace

After we had sat down to go through the resources on the Pretty Curious site, Grace couldn’t stop talking about becoming a Biotechnologist. Together we looked at the best Universities in the UK which help assist with this career and we also looked at the average salary. She has her SATS coming up in April next year and this is just the kind of encouragement she needs in order to focus on her subjects and have something to aim for.

Grace – with our permission – has signed up to learn more about the Pretty Curious programme, being sent information, further details and items of interest including giveaways.

On top of all of this, we are excited to be able to fuel Grace’s interest in Science and Technology further, thanks to EDF Energy and their partnership with the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi film. For Christmas we’ll be giving her an amazing littleBits Droid Inventor Kit. This will be in front of the rest of Ross’ family who are also very encouraging of Grace and her ambitions.

We have always been keen to encourage Grace’s career choices. This only fuels that further – not just for us, but for Grace too.

Disclosure: Thank you so much to EDF Energy for sending us littleBits Droid Inventor Kit and compensating us for this post. Please note that all, images, words and opinions have been formed by the owner of this blog. They have not been influenced in any way. Please do not reproduce any of the content or images on this post without prior agreement from Verily Victoria Vocalises.