TED TALK

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Take Test: M10: Skill 10 Assignment

2021SP-ESL-0106-DL01 ESL - Adv. Reading Skills (ESL-0106-DL01) ONLINE Course Content ... M10: Skill 10: Reading for a Purpose

Take Test: M10: Skill 10 Assignment

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This assignment gives you practice with Reading for a Purpose. Click on the link to open the TED Talk  "Inspiring the Next Generation of Female Engineers" by Debbie Sterling in a new tab. 

You will have to �ll in some of the vocabulary she uses and answer questions about her main idea and supporting examples. This assignment is worth 30 points.

Right click here to open the TED Talk in a new tab.

https://ed.ted.com/on/EpAqFHAm#watch

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QUESTION 1

Looking at the website, what do you think this talk will be about? Make a guess before listening. Write a sentence in your own words. Don't just write the title.

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QUESTION 2

A. Listen to the talk from the beginning and �ll in the missing words below starting at minute 9:10. Be careful with your spelling! 

Years later I did some research into this stuff, and I actually learned that I was at a . Like a lot of other girls, I had

spatial skills. The other interesting thing that I learned is that kids who score better on spatial skills tests grew up playing with toys. Well, I thought isn't this a shame. Me and my little sister growing up, our parents never bought us Legos or erector sets or Lincoln logs We all thought that those were boy toys I thought those toys have been marketed

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?

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My Courses Frederick Abimbola-Peters

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Lincoln logs. We all thought that those were boy toys. I thought, those toys have been marketed to boys for over a hundred years. And they get them interested in math and science. Meanwhile, all we get are the dolls and makeup kits, and it's not fair. So I thought, well, I'm an engineer now. I have a degree. I can make anything I want now. I'm going to make an toy for girls, and I'm going to give them the opportunity that I didn't have so that they can discover a passion for engineering much earlier than I did. So I got to work. I quit my job and I worked out of my apartment for months, making a prototype out of thread spools and wooden dowels, pieces I could find from the hardware store. I wanted to find a way to help girls develop their

.

I did all of this research. I met with little girls, and I found something really interesting. I'd buy construction toys and watch them play with them to see how they could be

and time and time again the girls would get bored with the toys. And so I would say, "Well, what is your favorite toy?" And they would run upstairs and they would bring back down a book and they'd say, "I love reading. Let's read together." So I came up with a really simple "aha" idea: What if I put those two things together: spatial plus

. A construction set plus stories.

And what if those stories were about a girl engineer character named Goldie Blocks. And as she goes on adventures, she solves problems by building simple machines. And so the girls read along, and they get to build with Goldie and it would bring in a

, and it would bring in the narrative that they so loved.

I made this prototype, and I went around the Bay Area testing it on hundreds of kids; and it worked. I had little girls in tutus building belt drives. It was awesome. And I knew I was on to something. So I had all of these ram shackled prototypes in my apartment; and I've been working for months like a hermit, not showering. And a friend of mine said, "Debbie, do you want to take this to the ? Do you trust me?"

I said, "Yeah, yeah." "Do you trust me?" I'm like, "Okay. We're not in a movie. What are you talking about?" He said: "You need to apply to this tech accelerator program." It is the most elite program in Silicon Valley. All the top around the world vie for a position in this program. You need to apply." So I applied, and I got into the big interview day. And I walked into a room of Mark Zuckerbergs sitting there on their computers. Meanwhile, me walking in, the chick with the physical prototype. And I had a napkin over it because, obviously, I had to protect my

.

And so I'm walking in there and gosh, do I not fit in. And one of the guys pipes up and says, "Oh, did you bring us cookies?" Well, my confidence was pretty shot; and needless to say, I didn't get into the accelerator. They didn't understand why on earth I would add a book. So, they didn't get it. But I didn't give up. So I brought my prototype to the New York toy fair. It's the international biggest toy show in the U.S. And I thought, okay, this is it. I'm going to go. I'm going to show toy industry veterans. I'm going to talk to and see what they have to say about my engineering toy for girls. And I walked in there thinking toy fair is going to be awesome. There's going to be all these creative types, mad scientists, kids running around, it's going to be so cool. It was a bunch of old men in suits. I don't fit in. Come on. I got through engineering, and now this? So I showed people my prototype; and they all kind of looked at me with pity. And they whispered me a well-known : construction toys for girls don't sell. And they took me by the arm, and they showed me what does sell, the pink aisle. And they said this is the way it is, and so we've come full circle. And I felt pretty dejected after that toy fair, but I wasn't willing to give up. Just because this is the way things are, doesn't mean it's how they have to be. And so I took my prototype. I partnered with a factory, and I turned it into a real toy.

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acto y, a d tu ed t to a ea toy.

The thing was the factory was 5,000 toys and with all of this rejection, I didn't know if people were going to want it; so I put it up on Kickstarter. I had a goal of raising $150,000 in 30 days to make this toy a reality. I hit go. I crossed my fingers, and I hit my goal in four days. And our minimum production, it didn't end up being 5,000 units. It ended up being over 20,000. I had stores calling from all over the world saying, "My customers are coming in, they want Goldie Blocks. What is this Goldie Blocks? “I had parents calling in saying, “Yes, my daughter is more than just a princess. “I had the press writing articles all about it. The world was waiting for this. They wanted this. The had it wrong. Yeah, sure, some girls like princesses and tiaras, and I like that stuff too, but there's so much more to us than that. There’s so much potential.

And for me, I couldn't be happier to be putting my skills into this product because it leverages not only the math and science that I worked so hard to learn, but also leverages my . And engineering is such a creative thing, and I never knew it. And it's so fun for me to get to use my creative voice and my artistic skills as a part of engineering. And it's so important that we include that .

And the other thing that's so great about it is engineering is for people. We’re

things for people. So how fun for me to get to spend my time playing and learning with little girls and understanding what their needs are and designing things for them. It couldn't be more .

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QUESTION 3

Write �ive new words from her talk and guess their meaning. Example: resilience: strength, perseverance

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QUESTION 4

What is her main idea? Restate it in your own words using one complete sentence. Do not repeat her words. Begin your sentence like this: In this talk, Sterling argues that ...

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QUESTION 5

Use your own words to finish this sentence: Sterling believes that engineering ...

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QUESTION 6

Agree or disagree with the speaker and support your opinion with an example from your experience. Answer this question in 2-3 sentences using your own words.

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