Join 500 Women Scientists on Tuesday, November 29th, 6-8 pm EST as we complete 6 years for an evening of celebration including inspiring stories of and by women in STEMM! Buy tickets or donate here.

As we look back on the achievement and growth of the past year and as we plan for the year to come, we ask you to take some time this November to celebrate how far we have come and reflect on where you want this organization to go. Take a day or a weekend to celebrate your achievements as an individual, as a woman, as a scientist, or as a 500 Women Scientists pod. Lets all recommit ourselves to our shared values and goals. Here are some ideas for things that you and/or your pod can do to celebrate our 1 year anniversary:

• Take stock of where you are today and what we have been able to make progress on over the past year - raise a glass to celebrate what you have achieved!

• Get your pod together.

• Host a Story Slam with your pod to share your achievements and your aspirations for the year ahead with your community. The Story Collider has generously provided tips on storytelling for our one-year anniversary celebration!

• Revisit your mission and goals.

• Do a fun thing! Retaining our capacity for joy is resistance in itself!

• Support a woman-owned business in your area, individually or as a pod.

• If you can, VOTE!

• Change the world!

As you celebrate, be sure to tag us in your photos on social media. 

Finally, the 500 Women Scientists leadership and advisory board will be celebrating our 1 year together in DC. If you are in the Washington DC area, please join us! 

On June 3rd 2017, we will officially launch the 500 Women Scientists organization in Boulder CO, celebrating everything we have achieved since our inception in November 2016.

Schedule: 

1:30-4 PM: Outdoor activities will start from the southwestern end of North Boulder Park. Choose an activity or group or meet us for yoga after. Groups:

(1) Hike up Sanitas Valley and back (easy/moderate) - 3.5 miles, 610 feet elevation gain, gravel trail
(2) Hike up Sanitas Ridge and down the East Ridge trail (challenging) - 4.5 miles, 1,450 feet elevation gain, rocky trail
(3) Road bike ride, around Boulder and surrounding area (easy/moderate) - 15 miles, rolling hills but no major climbs
(4) Road bike ride, Old Stage +  Lee Hill loop (challenging) - 19 miles, 2,300 feet elevation gain

4 PM: Restorative yoga @ North Boulder Park with Philo Mbong, a member of the 500 Women Scientists Leadership team and certified yoga instructor

5:30- 8 PM: Food, beer and lawn games @ North Boulder Park

If you can make it to Boulder, we invite you to please join us in person! Otherwise, stay tuned for more details on how to organize a local launch party with your pod.

RSVP here

On the same day,  we are teaming up with the Cairn Project, a nonprofit start-up that supports outdoor opportunities for young women through a community-funded grant program. Our shared goal is to support experiential science learning opportunities for rising cohort of young women scientists across the country. Join us by chipping in to support programs empowering our next generation of curious minds, researchers, and environmental stewards. Science and adventure for all!

Support the project here!

Find your Pod:

500WS pods are getting together to make signs, organizing teach-in booths, and creating social media campaigns. Find your pod and march with fellow supporters of science, of women, and of our shared values! Find your Pod!

Resources: 

• Informational 500WS Brochure  

• Print out these AWESOME coloring books Part 1 and Part 2! Hand them out at the March. 

• Beautiful Posters 

• Why we march, Medium post 

• A couple resources that might be useful for our non-US citizen marchers are the National Immigration Project's Marchers Rights guides and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund brochure of more general marchers rights for citizens and non-citizens & blog post explaining the resource. 

Marching in DC? Join us! and come find us throughout the day.

SnapChat your story!

SnapChat contacted 500WS and wants to highlight our stories from the March. Here are some directions from SnapChat:

• Vertical Video with Sound. We rarely use stills and we can't really use anything that is muted.
• Selfies are golden. The reason is that it shows real-life perspective. Tell us what's going on. Tell us how you feel in the moment. We love and show a lot of chants, but we'll get a lot of those. What we don't get (and what we need) are people talking to the camera about what's happening. 
• We will likely have custom-made filters for the event, probably prompting you guys to answer questions like "I'm Marching Because..." Think of ways to answer questions like this in genuine ways (in less than 10 seconds)
• Send to Our Story. If you send to My Story, contrary to conspiracy theories, we have no access to them. Please send them to Our Story (probably with a posting name Science March) for us to access. 
• Most importantly. Please be authentic. Be yourself. Have fun with it. 

Join 500 Women Scientists and partners for a Q&A session to learn some tips and tricks for scheduling visits and voicing your concerns with your congressional representatives from seasoned activists.

Congress will be on recess for the next two weeks, a good opportunity to visit them in their home district.

We've all seen how important it is to voice your concerns with your congressional representatives. People are calling, emailing, and attending town halls, but one of the most powerful tactics is having a face-to-face meeting with your representatives or senators in their district offices. Especially as scientists, establishing a relationship let's them know you care about their actions and can be a resource for them on important issues. The #OurEPA campaign brought together so many of us across the country to voice our support for the EPA, so let's build on this momentum and use this month to tell our reps how we feel about environmental protection, and other important issues dear to us all!

Join us for a webinar next Tuesday night where members of the #OurEPA campaign will be on call to provide practical tips to a successful congressional visit: Ideas on what to say, who to bring, and everything else you need! Check our our preliminary guide to visiting your rep and come ready on Tuesday with your questions and comments!

Note: You must RSVP to 500womenscientistsDC@gmail.com. You will receive a reply with the information about how to connect with the webinar.