Voqal is excited to announce its recent sponsorship of Science with Sophie. The $50,000 sponsorship will help to support the production of the innovative show’s next season.
New York-based Science With Sophie is a STEM science show and curriculum geared toward children ages 4 to 8 that strives to make science fun and accessible to all children, but particularly girls.
Science with Sophie is hosted by science educator/actor/comedian Sophie Shrand. Episodes use the Next Generation Science Standards pedagogy that has been adapted by Shrand to explore science in daily life by asking questions, trying experiments with easy-to-find materials and encouraging viewers to think deeply and creatively. Sophie plays all characters on the show with the goal of educating and entertaining while showcasing how diverse STEM careers can be.
The series can’t be described fully with talking about Shrand, who is a very talented and unique individual. She is a science educator, comedian and actor with degrees in Neuroscience and Theatre from Northeastern University in Boston. During her time developing educational programming at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where she taught 24,000 students per year, she got the idea to create Science with Sophie.
As a performer, Shrand has appeared on stages and screens across Boston and Chicago, including the Second City Training Center’s Musical House Ensemble. She relocated from Chicago to New York City in the fall of 2018 to pursue Science with Sophie full time.
Shrand developed a love of science as a young girl but always remembered not having a real-life and current female role model to help inspire and encourage this love. When she did enter a career as a scientist, she was disheartened to see that nothing had changed from when she was younger as most of her colleagues were men and there were still no female scientists in the mainstream media. Utilizing her theatrical training, she began to develop the concept for a completely female-led science series. Her fellow writers and content experts are all women scientists, educators and comedians.
The first season of Science with Sophie was shot mostly in her apartment and neighborhood in Chicago and was completely crowdfunded through Indiegogo and in-kind support. The innovative and creative nature of the show has generated a number of awards and positive press, as well as a fellowship from Camelback Ventures, which supports underrepresented entrepreneurs in the education and civics fields.
Voqal’s Education Opportunity Project seeks to measurably reduce educational opportunity gaps by providing capital and strategic advice to entrepreneurs and organizations working to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged populations. We believe Science with Sophie is exactly the type of change agent envisioned by this program and look forward to the more equitable science field that will no doubt result as Schrand’s audience continues to grow.