For the month of March, in honor of Women’s History Month, I am dedicating my weekly blog posts to the outstanding organizations, resources, and inspiring stories about women in STEM. You can view my posts from last year and this year by searching on the tag “Women’s History Month”.

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International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.  —  International Women’s Day website

The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. Established by a United Nations resolution for an annual observance on March 8, the 2016 celebration will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights. For additional resources, news and event coverage, visit the UN Women – International Women’s Day 2016 website.

For those that teach younger grades (or know of others that teach 11-14 year olds), please share this material, from The Global Goals for Sustainable Development:

Are YOU a teacher looking to teach about #GenderEquality this #IWD2016? C/O our lesson planhttps://t.co/o0v1zXg4MO pic.twitter.com/r6Lf6kmpqS

— The Global Goals (@TheGlobalGoals) March 6, 2016

In STEM fields, women are making incredible contributions and having successes with gender equality – yet there is still much progress that needs to be made. The following are selected articles published in 2015 and 2016 that examine gender (in)equality and (in)equity in science. This is not a comprehensive list, but at least a place to start. Please read through and share these articles with your students and colleagues in honor of International Women’s Day.

Atkinson-Bonasio, A. (2015, April 7). What does gender equality mean for women researchers in the 21st century? Elsevier Connect. Available at: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/what-does-gender-equality-mean-for-women-researchers-in-the-21st-century.

Bell, R. (2016, February 24). Changes on the ice (“Female scientists are speaking up, being heard & getting work done”). Nature, 530: 507. (Article online)

Brookshire, B. (2015, April 6). Women in engineering engage best with gender parity. Science News. Available at: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/women-engineering-engage-best-gender-parity.

Casadevall, A. (2015, September 1). Achieving Speaker Gender Equity at the American Society for Microbiology General Meeting. mBio, 6(4): e01146-15. (Article online)

Gibney, E. (2016, February 29). Women under-represented in world’s science academies – Fewer than half of academies have policies in place to boost gender equality in membership. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19465 (Article online)

GrrlScientist. (2015, March 17). Gender equality in science: a better future for everyone. The Guardian – Science. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2015/mar/17/gender-equality-in-science-it-takes-a-village.

Penner, A.M. (2015, January 16). Gender inequality in science. Science, 347(6219): 234-235. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa3781  (Summary available)

Pomeroy, C. (2016, January 1). Gender Equality in Science Will Require a Culture Shift. Scientific American. Available at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gender-equality-in-science-will-require-a-culture-shift/.

Smith, K.A., Arlotta, P., Watt, F.M. (2015). Seven Actionable Strategies for Advancing Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Cell Stem Cell , 16(3): 221 – 224. doi:10.1016/j.stem.2015.02.012

Urry, M. (2015, December 24). Science and gender: Scientists must work harder on equality. Nature, 528: 471-473. (Article online)

Wendel, J. (2015, June 17). Working Toward Gender Parity in the Geosciences. EOS, 96, doi:10.1029/2015EO031573 (Article online)

Following from the last article listed above… One book you may want to add to your library shelf is Women in the Geosciences: Practical, Positive Practices Toward Parity, 2015, 192 pp., ISBN: 978-1-119-06785-6 (book website).