Boundless Brilliance is a 501c3 non-profit based in Los Angeles County, California, but they have a long-term goal to expand across the United States. Their mission is to educate, empower, and engage students in order to close the gender gap in STEM fields in generations to come.
Boundless Brilliance was founded by three undergraduate students at Occidental College in 2017. The founders were disheartened after reading a study in Science Magazine (Bian et al., Science 355, 389–391 (2017)) that discovered by age six girls identify intelligence as a predominantly male trait, and vowed to take immediate action.
Their actions led to Boundless Brilliance’s inception and their unique model of delivering hands on STEM immersion & empowerment workshops in under-resourced classrooms. They implemented this intervention in hopes of inspiring more girls to envision themselves in positions of power and knowledge.
They aim for their workshops to give girls the confidence and courage that will guide them towards pursuing careers in STEM. With this as their first step, they work passionately towards their vision of a future with STEM leadership that is as diverse as the world in which we live.
You learn more about Boundless Brilliance and their mission in the following video:
Boundless Brilliance reached out to me and asked me to review their workbook, We Are Brilliant! A STEM Workbook for Future Leaders. The book was written by co-founder Audrey Shawley, and illustrated by a dynamic team of five Boundless Brilliance alumni. It is a fun engaging 64-page workbook for 3rd-5th grade students.
They provided me with a mock-up of the workbook, which I read and really enjoyed. My kids are younger than the suggested grades and I knew after reading it myself it was too early to introduce it to them.
I would, however, recommend this workbook to my nieces who are 9 and 12 years old. It encourages the readers to see themselves in a positive light, as brilliant, capable, and important. The workbook introduces you to several female STEM leaders who explain their field of STEM and why it’s important, ask relevant questions along the way, and provide STEM experiments covering each field of study.
The experiments are classic and challenging enough to teach the reader something new, but not so difficult it will intimidate them. They cover topics from oil spills to dinosaurs to lemon batteries to bridge building to egg drops, and much, much more! I can’t wait to try out these experiments with my kids. Maybe you’ll see some of these experiments used as inspiration for future posts on the blog! 🙂
I especially liked how there is an emphasis on leadership and also acknowledging that you will likely fail and that is ok! The book points out that we learn and grow from mistakes. So, mistakes can often be a good thing, and never a reason to give up or think you aren’t good enough.
This book is overflowing with encouragement and positivity for girls. I loved the constant uplifting text from page to page. The narrators are all upbeat and passionate about the STEM concept or career they are sharing.
Boundless Brilliance has an ultimate goal of providing 2,000 under-resourced students free of charge. Now wouldn’t that be a true potentially life-changing gift to those students? Books have the power to help people dream bigger, and this book will do just that for those students.
I’m looking forward to watching Boundless Brilliance grow into a national organization that will help give girls (and all students) STEM training and the self-confidence to know they are brilliant.
You can support their mission by checking out their website and ordering their workbook.
