Leiden PhD candidate writes children’s book to get girls excited about technology
PhD candidate Karen van den Akker has written a children’s book to get young girls excited about technology. The picture book ‘Met mama naar Mars’ tells the story of Luna, who wants to travel to Mars.
How do you get people excited about science and technology? This was the challenge Van den Akker faced during a two-year scholarship programme for master’s students at ASML tech company. Together with fellow students Liselotte Nass and Nadine Duursma, she decided to write a children’s book. ‘We wanted to get more women into technology and decided that the problem begins when girls are still young. There is not much that introduces them to technology’, Van den Akker explains. ‘So we wondered: How can we reach girls? And the answer was a children’s book.’
Boring STEM subjects
Van den Akker conducts fundamental research on producing hydrogen from water. Green hydrogen could be part of the energy transition. She hopes the book will show young girls that science and technology are for them too. ‘STEM subjects sometimes have a bit of a boring image. In the book we show you can do really cool things with it.’
In the story Luna is disappointed because the rocket will not start. But rather than give up, she decides to investigate. ‘Luna goes to the rocket’s creators, the scientists. She asks them one by one why the rocket is not working’, says Van den Akker. ‘Each one explains how they contributed to the rocket and why that was important.’
Insight into science
Van den Akker thinks researchers will identify with much of the book. ‘Luna’s character has the characteristics researchers need. So enthusiasm, curiosity and above all a great deal of determination.’ It also gives an insight into what scientists do on a daily basis. ‘You spend much of your time in the lab solving problems and working out why things are not working.’
The authors included several female role models in the book. ‘All the scientists in the book are named after real female scientists. And they are all listed at the end of the book’, she says
Smash stereotypes
Reactions to the book have been positive. ‘So far everyone has been really enthusiastic. People think it is a lovely book and that the message behind it is important too’, says Van den Akker. But she still notices stereotypes in society. ‘One person said, for example: “Oh wow, my sons are going to love it but my daughter won’t. Technology is for boys; girls like other things.”’
Van den Akker and her co-authors hope to smash these stereotypes with ‘Met mama naar Mars’. The book is available in bookshops and online stores.
Text: Tom Janssen
Photo: Erik van den Akker. L-r: Karen van den Akker, Liselotte Nass, Nadine Duursma.