MySweetEssential: IF/THEN®

According to Lyda Hill Philanthropies CEO Nicole Small,

Lyda Hill Philanthropies just launched our IF/THEN® Collection, which is free to access for anyone and the world’s largest digital resource library of photos and videos celebrating diverse, contemporary women in STEM careers. This Collection is a critical component of our national initiative, IF/THEN®, which seeks to advance women in STEM and inspire young girls to pursue STEM careers as well as create a culture shift in how the world perceives women in STEM.

The IF/THEN® Collection features 125 female STEM innovators diverse in careers, age and ethnicity so that young girls can see relatable role models to inspire them to enter STEM fields of study. Women with varying careers such as training Olympic athletes, an astrophysicist, software engineer, science teachers, a sports data scientist and more are all featured in the Collection.

The digital library is intended to help teachers of all grade levels access images of women in STEM career fields as they teach their students about these subjects. Museums and media outlets may use images for their exhibits and articles being written with examples of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and others.

The IF/THEN® Collection offers an unlimited opportunity to influence the visual world around us and directly follows the IF/THEN® initiative’s belief that “IF she can see it, THEN she can be it.” Our goal is for girls everywhere to see STEM as exciting, relevant and cool. Seeding the visual landscape with images of relatable and diverse women is key to making this happen.

While image-based and visual communication have always been important to young women and with school resuming for so many in an online format this Fall, it is more critical than ever that teachers have easy access to content that represents everyone they teach. We hope that this Collection can also be used as a tool for teachers in the classroom to inspire all children to enter the much needed fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Whether, it’s cancer, climate change or COVID-19, we need everyone at the table to help us solve the world’s biggest challenges. We are excited that the IF/THEN® Collection may inspire the next generation of game changers.

To see the Collection, please visit https://www.ifthencollection.org/.

*Graphic and photo provided by IF/THEN®