"Science with a Sparkle"

Good to see Twilight getting involved with this debate:

‘Science’ Center Teaches Boys Rocketry, Girls Makeup. Internet Certain To Be Pleased

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Wow. That is just shameful. I'm imagining Girl Scouts cross-dressing to attend the actual science.

[Jordan179]

The irony of this is that Twilight Sparkle isn't all that interested in makeup -- she seems to sometimes wear a minimal amount, mostly for formal events, but that's about it. She is, however, very interested in science -- she had a basement laboratory in the Golden Oaks Library, and presumably a larger one in her new castle.

[Crimson Dawn]

2501917

Sadly that was one of the only things that girl scout troops were signing up to do. If you read the article they used to have chemistry, astronomy, etc classes for the girl scouts as well but the only thing that really got used was the make up and sleep overs.

There are many possible reasons for this though. For one girl scouts seem to be dying off in the Pittsburgh area. My wife used to be one and troops were getting consolidated (or disbanding) all the time due to lack of membership. They also tend to be younger as the biggest participants in that area tend to be the younger levels while it seems boy scouts tend to last longer into the higher levels. Many former girl scout camps had to open up to other groups or have closed.

However I think it is the youth of the participants may be the biggest culprit. I have a feeling that these scouts are on the younger end of the scale and I could easily see parents signing up little girls to have fun with Twilight Sparkle than doing astronomy. Now if they put Twilight (or better yet Luna) with astronomy could you get parents to sign up kids (or get kids excited to do it)? Perhaps though I don't know if they tried that already or not.

I will also note that these are just my observations and are not grounded with actual statistics (for instance the age thing or the number of boy scouts to girl scouts). It could all be simply that the boys are more out there in the public eye than the girls but this is definitely how it looks to me lately.

[Booster Spice]

Nail polish can be used to make small rockets, when combined with newspaper.

Then again, that book was from th 1950s, so the chistry is probably a lot diffferent now.

[Snowy]

2501973

There are actually two important points in the update. The first is, as you said, that Girl Scouts simply weren't signing up for the non-makeup sessions that used to be available. The second, which I think is more important, is this:

Our programs for girls — such as STEM Stars, Tour Your Future, and CanTEEN — can be found here: http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/stemcenter/carnegie-stem-girls/ . Those programs give girls the opportunity to see female STEM professionals at their worksites, improve academic achievement, and learn about women making strides in STEM.

So they still have good programs for girls. They just don't have them scheduled for Girl Scouts specifically (though they would be "happy to book private workshops" if a particular troop has a particular interest).

[mylittleeconomy]

Rockets and robots are cool and expensive. People who have them are high status and powerful. Makeup is mundane. It makes people prettier, and trying to be prettier is looked down upon. It is "superficial." Yet people like to be pretty.

Status competitions may be zero sum, but technological innovations related to status competitions may not be. It is the success of such technological innovations that will wipe out evidence of their value.

Makeup is very useful in the arts.

[Walabio]

The museum says that it offered classes similar to those of boys before, but the women leading the GirlScouts would not signup their troops. Then again, the museum says lots of things. Let us take the statement of the museum at facevalue:

In the USA, we have a movement of CreaTard teabagging birthers discoraging the education of girls and encouraging girls not to have careers. It could be that these CreaTarded teabagging birthers infiltrated the leadership of the local GirlScouts. After all, Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania where a bunch of CDesign Proponentsists took over the Dover Area School District:

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

These CreaTarded teabagging birthers are the American Taliban. I can easily see them taking over the local GirlScounts and discouraging education of girls generally and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in particular.

The Panda’s Thumb is a blog reporting cases of CreaTards teaching Flat/Young-Earth Geocentric Creationism in schools and attacks against the teaching of Science:

The Panda’s Thumb

Unfortunately, it reports about someteen (more than a dozen but less than a score) cases monthly.