Encouraging Girls in Science
How to keep up your tween's interest in this subject By Annie Schoening

Girls still lag behind boys in science, say researchers — and it's in middle school that their scores start to head south. Why? They may be losing interest because they're not encouraged properly, says Joan Herbers, dean of the College of Biological Sciences at The Ohio State University in Columbus and mom of two.

Besides simply telling your child that you think science matters, there are some effective ways to incorporate science into her life:

Take it outside. Watch what's happening in your own backyard. Have your child keep track of things like the temperature or the time the sun sets: She can plot them on a graph and learn a few things about how the world turns.

Watch scientific TV shows and movies together. Discovery Kids has great programs, but don't overlook Discovery's other channels (Discovery, The Sci-ence Channel, Animal Planet) or the National Geographic Channel. Plenty of their specials are suitable for preteens.

Look it up. When your child wonders about the world, encourage that inquisitive mind and show her how to find the answers. Some great sites for kids: • Extremescience.com explains some of the world's coolest phenomena on land, in the sea, and in space.

• The American Museum of Natural History's site, ology.amnh.org, boasts interactive tools and thinking games that teach kids about everything from archaeology to biodiversity.



• The popular PBS show Zoom! posts dozens of simple science experiments kids will have a blast doing right at home. Find them at pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci.

Physics needs women

Editorial: March 2002

Later this month more than 300 female physicists from all over the world - and a few token men - will gather in Paris for the first ever international conference on women in physics. Organized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the primary purpose of the conference is "to understand the severe under-representation of women worldwide and to develop strategies to increase their participation in physics".

The meeting will have sessions on topics as diverse as attracting girls into physics and getting women into the physics power structure nationally and internationally. Delegates will also publish a list of resolutions that will be sent to physical societies, funding agencies and governments around the world. Many of the issues that will be discussed in Paris are addressed in this special issue on women in physics.

The basic situation can be summarized as follows: women in all walks of life tend to earn less than men and tend to be under-represented in the higher echelons of society. The situation is more pronounced in science and technology, and even more so in physics and engineering. Is this a problem? A female correspondent to this magazine once claimed that it was not. Scientists tend to be underpaid and under-appreciated in general, she wrote, so women tend to avoid scientific careers because they are brighter than men!

The shortage of women is not, however, good for physics as a subject because intellectual progress depends on attracting the very best brains - male and female. The reluctance of women to follow science and engineering careers will also become a problem for many countries as the world economy becomes more and more high-tech. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that large numbers of female science and engineering graduates - 50 000 in the UK alone - are not working at any one time.

The problems start in schools. The number of schoolgirls studying physics in the 16-19 age group varies across the world, but is rarely higher than one in three. This figure falls to about 20% at the undergraduate level, and to less than 10% - and often much less - at the level of university professor. Fortunately, the wave of retirements expected over the next decade offers a chance to redress the balance: the California Institute of Technology, for instance, has set itself the target of increasing the number of female faculty members from 11% to 25% within a decade. Physicists of both sexes must seize this opportunity.

We can learn much from women who have succeeded in physics. Of those contacted by Physics World, most were influenced to study physics by their parents, rather than their teachers. Most did not have mentors or role models either, although many of them are now role models for younger physicists. Moreover, only a handful benefited from schemes designed to encourage women in physics.

According to our sample it is also possible - but not easy - to combine a successful physics career and a family. Many female physicists also pointed out that while much discrimination is unintentional, that does not make it any less real. Male physicists only have to look at the data to see that women are discriminated against.

The women we spoke to have clearly become physicists against the odds, but what about the vast majority of schoolgirls who give physics a wide berth from an early age? Tough as it might be for male and female physicists to accept, image and appearance are important to young people, and anyone trying to encourage them into science needs to recognize this and act on it.

"One could have a mighty bonfire with all the material written on why more women do not practise science" writes one delegate who will be attending the Paris conference. Given the importance of encouraging more women to do physics, Physics World is happy to add more fuel to the fire.

Science Is for Girls!
Are girls interested in science? Just ask biotechnologist Dr. Sylvia Oliver and environmental engineer Dr. Kauser Jahan! These scientists -- and science mentors -- can hardly keep up with the applications pouring into their girls-only summer science camps. Today, they tell Education World how they inspire middle school girls to reach for the stars in math and science. Included: What the campers say about the camps and learn how to find a program near you.

"Very few girls have an engineer in their family at all, especially not a mom or an aunt in the field," Rowan University environmental engineering professor Kauser Jahan told Education World. This lack of female role models in math, science, and engineering spurred Jahan to start Attracting Women Into Engineering (AWE), a grant-funded summer science camp for middle school girls. "I think it's very important for girls to see that it's possible -- to see women who are engineers and who are doing it well," Jahan said. "This is the right time to talk to them about careers and to show them the good things they can do."

According to Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children, a 1998 report from the American Association of University Women, fewer girls than boys take advanced math and science courses in high school, and girls as a group are outperformed by boys on standardized math and science tests. Those gaps persist throughout college and beyond. "Only 18 to 25 percent of all scientists, and 9 to 10 percent of engineers are women," Jahan noted. "And for some girls, the high school years may already be too late" to stimulate an interest in science and engineering.

ENGINEERING GIRLS' FUTURES

Statistics on girls' participation in upper level math and science courses may be grim, but these girls-only programs provide a beacon of hope. "Middle schoolers are at an inquisitive age," Jahan told Education World. "They listen to music, but they don't realize that a compact disc is an engineering marvel. Our students visit Sony and see how a CD is manufactured. They begin to see how engineering touches the world globally -- that it is a profession that helps people have some of the good things in life!"

"Engineering is an underrepresented profession in the media," Jahan added. "How many engineers have you seen on TV? How many doctors? How many lawyers?" The real-life lessons girls learn in AWE will stay with them far beyond the last episode of a TV show like ER.

"I wanted to find out more about engineering," 14-year-old AWE camper Joslyn Pemberton told Education World. "It was great to do experiments and go on field trips to the Sony music plant and the water treatment towers. We had an egg dropping competition, where we could use only certain materials to build a protective covering for the egg. We dropped it from the top of the stairs, and my group won first place!"

Based on Joslyn's reaction, programs like AWE have a positive impact on the numbers of young women staying in high school math and science. "AWE made me think about my future a lot," Joslyn said. "It made me decide to work harder so I can get into a good college. I decided I want to be an electrical engineer."

DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE, WEARING A LAB COAT

"I had been hearing all of those horrible statistics about girls not going into the sciences, and then I saw the reaction of the young girls in our coed workshops," Washington State University -- Spokane CityLab director Sylvia Oliver told Education World. "When the girls are with the boys, they get to write down the data and clean up. Our science camps for young women allow girls to get hands-on experience. They don't get pushed to the background.

"I love it when the girls get excited about a discovery. My goal is getting them confident enough to ask questions, so they start the process of becoming lifelong learners," Oliver said. "One girl put on a lab coat, walked up to us and said, 'Now I just know I'm going to be a scientist.' That sent shivers up and down for us. It's that moment of time when you can really reach the kids."

"Our vehicle is biotechnology," Oliver explained. "In the camp's Astrobiology Quest, for example, girls use DNA technology to analyze mummies they've purportedly discovered on Mars. We do laboratory food analysis, blood typing, and studies of Martian metabolism. Girls get a hands-on feel for working in a real research lab. It's just like being a detective every single day of your life!"

Oliver is currently developing a science, math, and technology outdoor skills program called Science at the Summit, which will also have a girls-only component. "Mountaineering directly supports the learning style of girls -- cooperative group problem solving. It's the best way to work," Oliver noted.

"The most important thing about Dr. Sylvia's camp was that it taught me about today's problems," 1999 CityLab camper Briana Mullendore told Education World. "I'm going to be an environmental attorney and help save the Earth," the 15-year-old added.

"At CityLab, I learned how important it is to be a scientist," said Briana's 13-year-old sister, Angelina. "I'm going to be a microbiologist. We need more girls like us who want to do it. Our parents encourage us all the time. They tell us, 'You can be scientists -- reach for the stars!'"

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

GIRLS SUMMER MATH AND SCIENCE CAMPS

Many colleges and universities offer summer science opportunities for middle school and high school girls as well as coed opportunities. Here's a sampler of summer science activities for girls:

* Camp Kaleidoscope One of Pacific Science Center's Science Summer Day Camps, this camp allows girls in grades 6 through 8 to sample a kaleidoscope of scientific fields, including astronomy, chemistry, criminology, engineering, and meteorology. Campers meet women who are making a difference in the scientific community and visit research labs in Seattle to see scientists at work.
* Purdue Computer Science Summer Camps 2000 Held on the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, these boys-only and girls-only programs in computer science and robotics are sponsored by the K-12 Outreach Program of Perdue's department of computer sciences, Tellabs, Motorola, Raytheon, and Abbott Laboratories.
* North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Girls in Science Programs North Carolina's Girls in Science Statewide Project provides sixth-grade girls with hands-on experience with living things, along with interaction with female science mentors. In addition, Outdoor Ed-ventures, six-day residential science camps for seventh-grade girls, provide campers with canoeing, rafting, camping, and hiking experiences.
* The USC Summer Science Program Developed to engage middle school girls in hands-on scientific exploration, this program gives students the opportunity to explore science as they interact with undergraduate and graduate students in various scientific fields and with women already engaged in careers in environmental, biological, and physical sciences.
* The Miss Porter's School Summer Challenge Girls make use of state-of-the-art computer and science laboratories to explore biology, chemistry, physics, and math, and then apply math and science theories to solve real-life problems in this program developed by the Connecticut school.
* The Physics Summer Outreach Program for Middle School Girls Each summer, the physics department at the University of Maryland provides 25 eighth-grade girls with the opportunity to take part in a two and a half-week on-campus program of hands-on physics. The free program is designed to interest girls in science and to demonstrate to them that they can do physics.
* Girlstart Summer Camps The Girls' Technology Center in Austin, Texas, offers week-long day-camp programs in which girls aged 10 to 15 explore science, math, engineering, and technology concepts.
* Math, Science, and Technology Programs for Girls The AAUW provides links to a number of programs and resources designed to improve girls' achievement in math, science, and technology and to help narrow the science and technology gender gap.

COOL MATH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY WEB SITES FOR GIRLS

* Girlstart This Web site offers contests, homework help, games, role models, a birthday club, and other fun activities designed to "educate and empower girls in technology." The site also includes a parent newsletter.
* Design Your Future: Math, Science, and Technology for Girls This educational initiative, created and maintained by a software design firm, includes a Cool Links section packed with information about math, science, technology, online fun, organizations for girls, and women role models.

Leslie Bulion
Education World®
Copyright © 2000 Education World