“Do not try this at home – unless you have a Ph.D. or if you’ve been through pyrotechnic training, which I have,” the keynote speaker at Barton Community College’s 2023 Jack Kilby STEM Day told students Monday morning.
Classes on campus ended Friday with college students starting their Thanksgiving break. The annual JKSD brings high school students to campus as a way to introduce them to Barton and to get them excited about STEM.
Dr. Kate Biberdorf, author of fun science books for kids and adults, faced an audience of high school students to kick off the annual day of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics named after Great Bend native son Jack Kilby, a Nobel Prize winner who invented the microchip.
Biberdorf hopes to encourage more women to enter careers in STEM fields. In 1900, fewer than 1% of those jobs were held by women, she said. In 2023, the number has resident to 29.3%. “It’s been around 29% since 2018.”
Among the 646 Nobel laureates in science since 1900, 25 were women and only one was a woman of color.
“I have never seen a Black woman give a chemistry presentation and to me that’s gut-wrenching,” she said. So, her “secret goal” is to encourage more women and women of color to study science. However, she added, “I’m talking to men too; I really want you to become scientists and engineers.
“How do we fix these numbers? We blow things up!”
Students joined her on stage to assist with several demonstrations. The students were invited to deduce whether the experiments they witnessed were physical or chemical reactions.
After the morning program, students could attend two break-out sessions on campus to explore a variety of careers with hands-on activities.
About the keynote
Dr. Kate Biberdorf is the author of science-themed children’s books, including her most recent release, “It’s Elemental: Chemistry in Everything,” released in the summer of 2021. It is a chemistry guide that explains the science we experience every day. She has also appeared on the “Today” show, “NBC Nightly News,” “Wendy Williams,” and “Late Night with Stephen Colbert.”
