Achievement

During the 2012 IGERT Field Seminar in Greenland, the all-female cohort was introduced to a promotional video created by the European Commission, called “Science: It’s a Girl Thing,” as a part of an EC campaign to inspire more girls and young women to get involved in science. While well-intentioned, the video created a firestorm of controversy and was removed from the web. The incident inspired the Dartmouth IGERT cohort to shoot and edit their own “Science in Greenland: It’s a Girl Thing” video while working in the field. Female trainees from earth sciences, ecology, and engineering discussed beforehand why they enjoy science, and then worked together to edit and upload their video to the Dartmouth IGERT blog. It immediately went viral and garnered an enthusiastic following because it was humorous, creative, and depicted the real excitement of doing science in field. The trainee blog in general has had over 40,000 visits in four years.