Opening Science for All: A Continuing Quest tells the engaging tale of one of few women who successfully broke glass ceilings in science and elsewhere beginning in the middle of the twentieth century. By relating her own story as a successful scientist and explaining how it led to later competence and confidence in other pursuits, author Selby emphasizes the broad usefulness of science for everyone. She hopes this book will help expand science education from classrooms and laboratories into all daily lives. Correcting ...
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Opening Science for All: A Continuing Quest tells the engaging tale of one of few women who successfully broke glass ceilings in science and elsewhere beginning in the middle of the twentieth century. By relating her own story as a successful scientist and explaining how it led to later competence and confidence in other pursuits, author Selby emphasizes the broad usefulness of science for everyone. She hopes this book will help expand science education from classrooms and laboratories into all daily lives. Correcting prevalent misperceptions about what science is and what scientists do, Selby presents science not as a method for a few, but rather as a means of inquiry, a way of asking and answering questions that welcomes and needs diversity in participants. Scientific inquiry shares many processes with inquiry in the arts and humanities, remaining uniquely different and useful in requiring answers that must be verifiable and falsifiable. Selby's story becomes a woman's story as her search for family and work balance led her to management and leadership in non-science careers. She served as a head- mistress as well as National Executive Director of Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and accepted appointments to non- profit and corporate boards, where she found herself a minority not only in gender but also in science literacy. Selby defines science as a personal and democratic practice of inquiry that deserves equal opportunity with all other human inquiry to advance societal development, solve problems, satisfy curiosities and help us enjoy everyday life.
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