Reinvent the Lab Coat
Hosted by Girl Day Leader: Abbott Women in STEM Austin Chapter
Visit our Booth:
- Saturday, February 27, 2021, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
- Sunday, February 28, 2021, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
- Saturday, March 6, 2021, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
- Sunday, March 7, 2021, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Recommended Grades: All Grades
The Challenge: Reinvent the lab coat - draw it, design it, wear it.
Recommended Materials: paper, pencil, colored markers or pencils, cloth or t-shirt or buttoned shirt to make a mock-up of your lab coat design
Instructions:
- Imagine your dream lab coat. What would it look like? What color(s) would it be? Is it long or short? Does it have no pockets or lots of pockets? Does it have technology built-in or any other innovations?
- Draw your design. Sketch it out on paper. Color it. Add words to help describe features.
- If you have materials to use, want to sew, or want to make your creation come to life, go for it!
- Share your design drawing or share a video of your creation on Flipgrid.
For more than a century, the go-to representation of science and innovation – the lab coat – has remained remarkably unchanged. But as science clips away at the fastest pace in modern history, women still make up less than a quarter of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs. Studies have shown us that there are a lot of reasons for that. According to research from the Girl Scouts of America, girls who are interested in STEM are drawn to the creative aspects of the fields and to the possibility of having a positive impact on the world. But not all girls associate careers in STEM with those ideas. So how can we help these young people see that science and engineering are all about using creativity every day to solve some of the world's biggest problems?
One idea: Start by reinventing that lab coat.
Watch the full video of Reinventing the Lab Coat below:
How does this activity connect to STEM and today's Girl Day theme of Moving Around: Land, Water, Air, and Space? Engineers and scientists design clothes to help us move around and stay safe.
- Materials in a lab coat may be designed to protect from certain chemicals or may be waterproof to keep you dry.
- Materials in a fire fighter's suit won't burn and protects skin from the heat.
- Materials in your tennis shoes ensure you have grip on a basketball or volleyball court.
Visit Abbott's website for more STEM-related activities:
- Chemiluminescence
- DNA Investigation
- Ph Discovery
- How To Make A Stethoscope
- Lava Lamp
- Mechanical Grabber
- Steam Boat
About Abbott Laboratories
As a global health technology company that recruits world-class scientists and engineers, we know women are a critical factor in solving the world’s biggest problems with smart, imaginative thinking.
But in the United States, women make up just 24% of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce, way below most other sectors. There are a lot of reasons for that: One of them is high school girls value creative thinking and want a career that has a positive impact on the world – but don’t always know how science and engineering can give them both, due to a lack of exposure.
We, together, can change that.
We know that hands-on, creative experiences encourage girls to engage in STEM, which is why we continue to invest in our high school internship program, which was founded in 2012. The internship demystifies what it means to work in STEM by giving students the opportunity to contribute to our life-changing technologies alongside engineers and scientists who look like them.
Because we choose students from diverse schools near the cities where we work, more than two-thirds of these students from across the U.S. are women and more than half are from other underrepresented groups. About half of them end up in our college internship program, and we've recently hired our first high school internship alumni on as full-time employees. Five of the seven are women.
Join us in this movement.