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Rachel and Elizabeth (Photo Credit Twitter @cycleforscience)
Audio Transcript:
Rachel Woods-Robinson now works as a scientist for UC Berkeley. But when she first started college, she enrolled as a music major.
I had no idea I wanted to do science except for the fact that I kind of liked astronomy. How did I get into science? I read a bunch of books about astronomy and then I realized it could be something that I could seriously follow.
Elizabeth Case starts her PhD in engineering in the fal,l but she started undergrad UCLA as an English major.
I thought I was going to be the next great American novelist…I loved stories, I loved writing and I didn’t really see a connection with science.
But as Elizabeth pursued her degree she became attracted to the idea of learning something that she couldn’t learn outside of school…so she started studying physics.
And That’s when she fist met Rachel, in a class called…
The Arrow of time, it was about spacetime…we first really got to know each other…when we ended up going to the alps together to go backpacking in 2011.
Rachel explains that throughout college, the two of them had a running joke…
Whenever something difficult in school happened we would be like “let’s just go! Let’s drop out and bike across the country…and then we finally realized that is actually something that we actually really wanted to do.
Now they’re going ahead with their plan… not with the dropping out part, they both graduated…and this spring the two of them will cycle approximately 3800 miles, from San Francisco to New York. …But the trip won’t be all vacation – they’ll be working some...
We’re going to be stopping in middle school classrooms along the way, and we’ll be teaching lessons about renewable energy and about physics
The two women will pass out 3D printed models of mini solar powered bicycles to the classrooms they visit– The goal: try and expose students to science from a different and fun angle. Here’s Elizabeth:
We figure that at least bicycles are pretty relevant to kids lives , they’re a lot of fun, and you don’t really think about the fact that physics keeps it upright. There’s fundamental laws of nature that keep you moving forward on a bicycle.
Currently men out number women 3 to 1 in scientific academia. Rachel thinks back to her middle school days as an inspiration for the project
I was good at math in middle school but I remember science not being cool. I remember that distinctly. And I remember being convinced out of being interested in it because it wasn’t something that my friends did.
Now they hope to change that
We’re targeting anyone who has an interest and a passion for science....We want to use ourselves in a way to show that ‘yes, you’re a young girl, that means you can be a scientist too.
They start their three month journey on April 17 – you can follow their progress at cycleforscience.org or on twitter: @cycleforscience.
Reporting for HerTech, I’m Tyler Daniels.