MARCH FOR SCIENCE 2017 AND MY CONTINUOUS DRINK OF HOMOGENY

My name is Phyllis Carey and I’ve been a working scientist for over 30 years. I was very excited for the march this year! It happened to fall on my birthday weekend, (which birthday I will keep to myself), so instead of marching in DC or my hometown of Chicago, I found myself marching in Las Vegas (what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas).
On April 22, once I finally found the venue I was immediately overcome with enthusiasm seeing the small but, powerfully vocal group of scientist, educators, students and even a few “science” service animals. My job for this event was threefold; scientist, journalist, and photographer. As I pursued the crowd I visually noticed the lack of participants of color (after the march as I watch the news coverage from around the globe I witness the same astonishing visual), now this unfortunately is nothing new to me as an African-American woman in a predominate white, male field.
(This is how my years in meteorology goes in terms of racial/gender makeup):
high school science classes-ALL WHITE, ALL MALE
college science program-ALL WHITE, ALL MALE
 first/second/third television stations-ALL WHITE, ALL MALE
and on and on….
But, for some reason I had forgotten (for a split second) the lack of inclusion still exists in the field of science. As we move forward from the enthusiasm of the march, I want to challenge my fellow colleagues and the global community to not turn a blind eye to the common practice of racial/gender discrimination that continues to be ever present in science.
EQUILITY-EXPLORATION-EDUCATION

Author

Phyllis is a Science Education Consultant and Atmospheric Scientist, she works primarily with Universities, Museums and School Districts around the world, in the pursuit of increase science knowledge and learning through EQUITY-EXPLORATION-EDUCATION…