COVID-19: Educational Resources for Kids

The last few weeks have been challenging and scary for people around the world. With schools cancelled for the foreseeable future, parents now have the responsibility to provide educational opportunities for their children. Learning about science is critical but can be challenging to do at home. Below we provide some science education resources and science-themed coloring books and pages for people of all ages, crowd-sourced from our amazing 500 Women Scientists community across the world!

  • You can download pdf files of coloring pages 👇🏼

  • Check out and our database of science-themed activities

  • Please enjoy these resources with your kids and/or share them with other parents you know!

We will continue updating this page and our database of activities, which also includes information on how to support the communities who are creating and making these resources available. If you have resources to share, please contact us.

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Brain Cell Patterns

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Love your Lichens

Created by Cartoon Neuron

 
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ColorMe PhD contains original art developed by PhD student researchers for a general audience!

Coloring with Cell

Cell Press is sharing a classic coloring book - color your way through biology!

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Created by students at the University of Florida!

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Fun with Fractals

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Corona-

virus coloring page

The Protein Data Bank created a coloring page of the coronavirus.

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Ocean Creatures to Color is also created by Cartoon Neuron!

Photo by Foto Garage AG on Unsplash

Today and every day, support trans rights!

Today and every day, support trans rights!

Today, March 31, is trans visibility day - a day to celebrate transgender people and raise awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide. Visibility is not just about seeing trans people as individuals. Visibility is about learning the history of the trans rights movement and how trans right intersect with other movements for equality. Visibility is about showing up and working to dismantle the many systems of oppressions trans people face in society.

Join team WomenInStem, donate computer processing time!

Today’s Take Action post comes from Rachel Ignotofsky

As the world is responding to the COVID-19 virus, its easy to feel anxious, overwhelmed, and helpless. But there are lots of ways we can still engage with and help speed up a COVID-19 treatment and vaccine.

You can donate your computer processing power and time using a program called folding@home to simulate a viral spread and help find a vaccine. Together, your computer will be networked with lots of other computers to create super computers for researchers. This is especially useful if you have a computer with a high powered graphics card (like what you might get for editing or gaming) but any PC or Mac will help!

Join the team WomenInScience (team# 241903) and donate your computing power in 5 easy steps:

  1. Go to foldingathome.org

  2. Click on “start folding” and download folding@home software

  3. Follow instructions to install and run software

  4. Join team WomenInScience 241903

  5. Sit back and let your computer do the work

Read more about Folding@Home’s work on COVID-19 here.

Hope Is Not a Strategy: What we can do in the wake of COVID-19

Hope Is Not a Strategy: What we can do in the wake of COVID-19

Over the last few weeks, we at 500 Women Scientists have been closely monitoring news and developments around the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that many of our members and their communities have been growing concerned and anxious and are looking for positive ways to channel their energy. We’ve put together a list of things you can do in the coming weeks to follow expert guidance, share expertise of your own, and serve your communities.

Take Action

2020 is shaping up to be a huge year for voter turnout in the United States. But voter registration and turnout remains low for 18-25 year olds while undergraduate STEM majors are even less likely to vote than many of their peers. 

The good news is that we can help. 

In 2018, many 500 Women Scientists pods and members were active in getting out the vote in their communities. We’re excited to build on that this year by sharing what we’ve learned and identifying ways we can make the most of our time and energy between now and November.

Please check out our resource guide for registering and mobilizing voters. And join us on the 500WS Pods Slack under #2020 to share what you’re doing!

The guide covers some ideas for getting started, resources for voter registration and mobilization, and links to groups that are doing a ton of work, including through powerful official channels on campus, to get out the vote. We’ve also covered some basics dos and don’ts for voter registration activities conducted through non-profit groups like 500WS.

And one final note: the general election might be months away, but now’s a great time to get started with voter registration. Amid impeachment and the U.S. presidential primary, people are paying a ton of attention to what’s happening in U.S politics. And record-breaking turnout in 2018 — the highest we’ve seen since women won the right to vote in the United States — might just be the beginning!

Stay tuned for more as we update this guide and as other science groups kick into gear.

Take the Science Rising Challenge: The Union of Concerned Scientists, SACNAS, and other Science Rising partners have launched their own voter registration campaign, and you can be part of it! Be sure to check out their messaging toolkit, and tag them alongside @500WS for your campaigns and tweets!

Photo by Fred Moon on Unsplash

Weekly Wrap-Up

Welcome to 2020 folks! We hope you were able to take some time to yourselves, to get a bit of rest before the onslaught that has already proved to be 2020.

We stand in solidarity with everyone seeking and working towards peace. 500 Women Scientists is deeply committed to a peaceful process that values every human life and every culture. Demilitarization and decarbonization are intrinsically linked and we will continue to use our platform to amplify voices that advocate for peace, environmental and climate justice, and equitable solutions to our planet’s most pressing problems.

Our plans for 2020

  • Women’s March 2020 - see you there!

  • 500 Women Scientists brand refresh coming your way in January (thank you Teal Media!!!)

  • Relaunching the new and improved Request a Woman in STEMM platform next week!

  • Launching the new Reproductive Justice project for 500 Women Scientists pods

  • Meeting the first Fellowship for the Future cohort and kicking off the 2-yr fellowship

  • Sharing guidance around the 2020 US elections

  • Growing our SciMom Journeys initiative

  • Organizing Wikipedia editing events and conference meet-ups all over the world

WHAT WE LIKE

READING CORNER

IN OUR EARBUDS

Don’t hesitate to send us your podcast and book suggestions

Photo by Crazy nana on Unsplash

Weekly Wrap-Up

This week brings another political low, another chink in the armor of democracy. In the words of Priyamvada Gopal

We face an entrenched reality now, here to stay for the foreseeable future. It's the reality that the anticolonialists of the world once faced: huge empires with vast weaponry at their command, literal & ideological, & the ignorant consent of swathes of their populaces.

How do we stand up against this tide of xenophobia, fear mongering, lack of accountability, dismissal of facts and objective truths? How do we push back? Its easy to feel despair and grief, but we cannot give up and we cannot turn away from what is in front of us. The road to our collective freedom is long and arduous. But we must show up and take the first step and then another and then another. That’s how we move from despair to action and from action to change. As Priyamvada Gopal said, the odds were always against us. Lets continue the hard work anyway.

WHAT WE’VE DONE

  • We announced the inaugural Fellowship for the Future cohort ✨✨✨

500WS meet-up at AGU. Photo credit Dany Waller

500WS meet-up at AGU. Photo credit Dany Waller

WHAT WE LIKE

READING CORNER

IN OUR EARBUDS

Don’t hesitate to send us your podcast and book suggestions

Photo by Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash

Our mission is to serve society by making science open, inclusive, and accessible, and to transform society by fighting racism, patriarchy, and oppressive societal norms