When NASA astronauts first walked on the moon in 1969, eight-year-old Pamela Melroy was watching. Very few people who saw the Eagle land have forgotten the sight, but for Pam, the experience was more than awe-inspiring-it changed the course of her life.
“When I learned science, it was through doing sets of experiments, like following recipes out of a cookbook,” recalls Dr. Cindy Norton, Endowed Professor in the Sciences at the St. Catherine University in Minnesota. “Over the past 15 years, things have changed, though,” she adds. “Science is now more inquiry based and more relevant to students.”
In 1998, voters in a focus group were asked to close their eyes and imagine what a governor should look like. "They automatically pictured a man," says Barbara Lee, whose foundation promoting women's political advancement sponsored the survey. "The kind you see in those portraits hanging in statehouse hallways."