What do you want to be when you grow up?
All too often little girls automatically reply with something they are “supposed to be” such as a teacher, a nurse or a secretary. Engineers, architects and scientists rarely make the grade.
That’s what a Culver City, Calif., husband and wife team discovered and set about changing through a series of nine books. Now, artist David Katz and former engineer Judith Love Cohen are taking their message to girls, ages 5 to 12, through a series of homegrown CD-ROMs.
The initial lineup from Cascade Pass Inc., Katz and Cohen’s publishing firm, includes “You Can Be a Woman Astronomer,” “You Can Be a Woman Engineer,” “You Can Be a Woman Marine Biologist” and “You Can Be a Woman Architect.” Eventually, Katz says, they hope to create CDs for all the books in the series.
“Adding the sounds and visuals brings the book and subject to life,” Katz said.
The programs aim to inspire girls by example. Each focuses on the personal story of a successful woman professional. The professional talks about her work and fields questions from girls. Graphics, videos, songs and games enliven the mini-rap sessions and highlight key topics in each field. A narrator reads the book on which the CD is based, in both Spanish and English.
Award-winning researcher Dr. Florence McAlary, for example, recalls the events that inspired her in “You Can Be a Woman Marine Biologist.” McAlary remembers fishing with her grandfather and, later, recalls studying damselfish in the Virgin Islands.
By pointing and clicking on graphics, youngsters can follow McAlary on what’s called a “Dive Into the Kelp Forest.” Active fingers are rewarded with McAlary’s photos of underwater life and such statements as “Lobsters along with crabs and shrimps are crustaceans.”
A few simple games give girls a chance to show what they’ve learned. Girls are asked to select the “right habitat” for a variety of creatures in one game. In another, players choose topics that a marine biologist might study.
There’s also a selection of vocabulary words and definitions, plus a section for suggested lesson plans. A feature titled Places to Go offers some snapshots and videos of research institutions. In the marine biologist’s program, those spots include the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Wash.
The show-and-tell approach is similar in each of the programs. So, each program has the look and feel of a junior high school career day. A friendly professional visits and offers a presentation, complete with a private collection of slides and video.
None of the featured women is a household name, but all have noteworthy backgrounds: Dr. Andrea Mia Ghez is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA; Margot Siegel is a founding partner of Siegel Diamond Architects of Los Angeles; Cohen helped launch the Hubble Space Telescope.
The CDs are priced at $20 each, including a soft-cover companion book. The programs are available for both Macs and Win/Win95.
These low-budget productions are far from the glitzy edutainment fare from the multimillion-dollar software publishers. Rather than turning to teams of writers, researchers and programmers, the husband and wife team relied on their own sweat, the efforts of a few associates and a lone programmer.
Katz even wrote the words for some of the songs. Lyrics like “the sea is filled with wonders, not a one of them a phony,” are not exactly poetry, but they work.
The efforts come from the heart. When Katz began the “You Can Be…” book series eight years ago, he was motivated by the girls he met as a substitute teacher in inner city Los Angeles. These girls, he realized, sorely needed role models to expand their horizons.
Cohen, then an engineer designing space systems for NASA, stepped into the breach. She offered her life story and encouraged girls to join along a similar career path in “You Can Be a Woman Engineer.”
Now publishing is a full-time occupation for the couple. So far, Katz said, the company has sold about 60,000 books and CDs. In addition, Cascade Pass organizes career workshops for young girls.
The amateurism, unfortunately, takes a toll. Cascade fails to make full use of digital media. A computer program should provide an interactive, rather than a passive, experience. Yet, other than the ability to click on “hot spots” with a mouse button and play a few simple games, these programs are little more interactive than the experience of reading a book.
Each program is basically an electronic storybook, but the programs lack key features of top-notch electronic storybooks. The programs don’t highlight words as they are read or link words with their definitions.
The programs are one-size-fits-all. A third-grader and a sixth-grader get the same information in the same way.
There are no means to adjust the programs so students at different levels get appropriate content.
The programs just skim the surface when it comes to content. Many points are raised by the experts, but few are explained. Want to find the location of the Virgin Islands? Wonder what other creatures are crustaceans? You won’t find it here.
Nevertheless, the rawness is a bit refreshing. Perhaps sincerity will win over slickness for both the younger set and for the older generation that buys software for them.
In contrast to some big name software publishers, Cascade really is trying to push educational content rather than entertainment. Perhaps Cascade’s next CD should be “You Can Be A Woman Software Publisher.”
The books and CDs are available through some local retailers and also directly from Cascade Pass Inc. at its Web site at www.cascade-pass.com or via telephone at 1-888-837-0704.
PLENTY OF SOFTWARE FOR GIRLS
Software isn’t for nerds. It’s for girls.
A growing number of software publishers have that marketing message in mind as they churn out new titles for youngsters of the female persuasion.
Once underserved, the potentially lucrative market is now stocked with programs from a variety of big-name vendors and smaller specialists.
Even IBM, the Armonk, N.Y., computer giant, targets software for girls. “Magic Wardrobe,” from Big Blue’s Crayola collection, for example, lets girls make pretend trips to the past, read diaries of girls who lived then and decorate paper doll period clothing.
What makes a software program a girls’ software program? Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to get peddled as such. Some publishers simply highlight a female role model. Others add a computerized spin on such stereotypically girl-pleasing activities as jewelry-making, dressing up and coloring.
Albeit in digital form, dolls remain firmly in the stable of girl PC playthings. Even Mattel Inc.’s famous Barbie doll boasts her own line of software, including “Where’s Ken? Detective Barbie” and the “Barbie Riding Club” CD-ROMs.
Traditional style meets the computer age head-on in the software companion to The American Girls Collection. “The American Girls Premiere” from The Learning Company Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., (which recently merged with toymaker Mattel Inc.) encourages youngsters to learn about history while producing a play featuring the dolls.
The female lead character is a fixture in a variety of CDs for girls. Typically, the heroine provides an entry into a learning environment. Creative Wonders, a Fremont,Calif.-based subsidiary of The Learning Company, presents lessons with the aid of Madeline, the beloved French orphan. Then there’s infamous Carmen Sandiego. Broderbund Software Inc.’s international thief encourages youngsters to learn history and geography as they pursue her in a series of programs.
Purple Moon of Mountain View, Calif., provides what it describes as “friendship adventures for girls.” Such Purple Moon titles as “Rockett’s New School” and “Secret Paths in the Forest” feature characters who must deal with personal and social issues.
Joystick fans beware. The girls’ titles are a little thin on gaming fare. Don’t expect to find much shoot ’em up action among the programs for girls.
For a list of girls’ software titles and links to software publisher’s promotional Web sites, one starting place is the Just4Girls Web site (www.just4girls.com), which is sponsored by an informal coalition of software publishers. Though slightly dated, the site offers a shopping list of CD-ROMs divided into three categories by age.
