<p>I don’t know about the theory. I’m a female structural engineer. In my experience, it’s the architects that generally figure out the functions of buildings, etc. Then the engineers take the architects’ vision and make it a reality. If the architect says there’s a library on the second floor, I make sure to design the floor framing so that it can handle extra loads. I don’t ask why the library is there.</p>
<p>My D goes to a school with the stated purpose of making STEM more accessible to both boys AND girls-and the student population is about 50/50. The girls have been right in the middle of the projects that involve “building”, like last year’s 4’+ catapults in the 8th grade. Some of the girls were the ones most interested in tweaking and tinkering and using the power tools. The catch is that both boys AND girls are taught about the purpose and “what it’s for” for any of the projects so that they see the bigger picture. This might be because the person who started the school is a woman and at least half of the teachers are women, even in the sciences.</p>
<p>DS’s 8th grade math teacher asked the students to build bridges and catapults. The latter was fun but somewhat dangerous. I heard the teacher would drop a quite large stone on one end of the catapult and the “object” would fly very far away. The teacher did not want the students to do this because she thinks it is safer for her to drop the stone for every catapult built by the student. The students were amazed by how powerful some of these catapults can be. Lots of fun for the students. But the teacher said afterwards that her arm hurts after picking up the stone so many times. Kudo to this teacher to give the students so much fun.</p>
<p>DS teamed up with his friend to build a bridge. The teacher would put some weight on the bridge to test whether the bridge would collapsed or not. Their bridge collapsed under the weight. DS was upset and deeply regretted they had not tested it beforehand, but his friend would not care (saying it just does not matter because it is a game for fun only.) Guess who later becomes an engineer? The one who did not care.</p>
<p>I’ve seen things go both ways, but in general, there are still more guys who like both theory and building - at least for mechanical things. Girls hold their own or surpass guys with theory and reality of biological things (including nutrition and medical, but not farming). I only see high school level.</p>
<p>In my college Physics classes I was often the only female. There were always fewer than 5 in the upper level classes. Engineering - and the actual build with nuts and bolts (vs theory) never interested me. My engineering other half vastly prefers that end, but enjoys tweaking designs too - esp in his field.</p>
<p>I have read studies in the past stating that there are “how” people and there are “why” people. Girls favor “why”, though not to the level of 50/50. The articles were written from the perspective of how/why learning styles as a tool for educators. The suggestion was for teachers to listen to how kids were framing their questions and to tailor the answers based on how/why. “Mrs. Johnson, how did George Washington cross the Delaware?” vs “Mrs. Johnson, why did George Washington sit in the front of the boat when he was crossing the Delaware?” or “how do to build a catapult” vs “why is the catapult built this way?”</p>
<p>This is one of those questions that creates its own answer. </p>
<p>If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you have this narrow question, you will get the idea that this is not a continuum. It’s not either/or. In other words, bad questions produce uninteresting information.</p>