The Great Women Gallery
(Giving girls, and boys, a new way to view the world)
One day, a woman in Vienna called an artist in Canada...
and asked her to paint Harriet Brooks.
The woman was Rumina Velshi.
She was head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. She knew Harriet Brooks was Canada's Marie Curie. And she'd heard of the the 'Great Women Portrait Project' - which uses Art to reveal the female pioneers who paved world-changing paths in traditionally male-dominated fields like science, tech, engineering and math (STEM).
Since Rumina made that call, Jo Napier's 'Great Women portrait' of Harriet Brooks - a radon pioneer and Canada's first female nuclear physicist - now hangs a presence in 30 energy industry offices in Canada and the U.S.(see insert images)
As you know, we too seldom see the 'female face' of STEM innovation. Men, after all, were history's traditional record keepers; that's just the way things were, back in the day.
Today, we have the tools to fill in that gender gap in STEM education (and girl's inspiration).
We have AI. We have Art. And we can use both to reveal history's hidden scientists, inventors, engineers and innovators to students. This is the goal of the Educational Phase of The Great Women Portrait Project....
PILOT PHASE - TESTING: We've been testing the 'speaking portraits' in local private and public schools.
Here is ANDREW MACDONALD, IB MYP Coordinator | Middle School Faculty, Halifax Grammar School
NASA pioneer Portrait Project's 'North Star'
The first U.S. woman involved in the Great Women Portrait Project was Frances 'Poppy' Northcutt. She speaks here - (to Project participants who met in Year 1) - to the value and power of girls having a role model...
Insert 3 historic women (AI-enhanced portraits)
insert the 3 portraits shown to local schools... write intro relevant to Paige and her people. This is Hertha Ayrton - each 'portrait' for schools is under 1 minute and includes 'provocation' catalyst to research and learning about this STEM pioneer, her work, its impact.