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Women-in-Science

Elizabethtown Ind.’s program raises participation of girls in STEM classes

Kentucky School Advocate
April 2018

By Matt McCarty
Staff writer

Jazmine Bailey said she’s always been good with math but never thought about a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math)-related career until she got involved with Elizabethtown Independent’s Women-in-Science program as an eighth-grader.

Now a junior at Elizabethtown High School, Bailey said she plans to pursue a career in either biomedical engineering or pediatric surgery.

“Before all of this, I didn’t think that it was normal, I guess, for girls to be in those kind of careers but, after this, I realized that I wanted to do that,” she said. “I didn’t really have any kind of direction before, but this really pushed me toward that direction.”

She isn’t alone.

Elizabethtown High School’s Project Lead the Way pre-engineering pathway began in 2012. After moderate participation and low retention of females in the program’s beginning, girls now account for about 20 percent of students in the program.

The percentage of girls in the school’s AP physics class has risen from 28 percent four years ago to 46 percent this year. A fourth-year digital electronics class began in 2015 with 16 percent female participation followed by none the second year. Now in its third year, 46 percent of the course’s students are girls.

The district had 105 girls participate in Women-in-Science events the first year. This year, 420 girls have participated in the eight Women-in-Science events.

“Girls need positive messages about their ability to be successful in STEM fields,” said Susan Ryan, Elizabethtown’s workforce readiness coordinator. “It’s not uncommon for girls, if perhaps they find that math or science, some kind of concept they’re studying, is hard, because that just doesn’t come naturally to them, they may automatically assume ‘I’m not good at this.’ One thing we try to do is reinforce just because we make mistakes or just because we have failures doesn’t mean we’re not good at something.”

Ryan said the district has received grants each year and “each of the grants have helped us stair-step and build in a continual pipeline going from fourth grade to high school.”

Justin Line, who teaches Principles of Engineering and Computer Integrated Manufacturing at the high school, said he was surprised when he was in college that only about 15-20 percent of his engineering classmates were female.

“Why are girls feeling like they’re not adequate or that’s not a subject for them, it just blows my mind,” he said. “Seeing these girls in high school and what they’re capable of, really has given a passion to me to go out of my way to make sure we’re getting our numbers up. And kind of debunking all the theories that girls can’t do math and science, girls can’t do STEM, because it’s totally false, and I don’t even know where it came from.

“We want to be on the forefront of changing those numbers around and making it 50-50, an equal opportunity for everybody involved.”

Line said the small number of girls in STEM classes is due to lack of awareness, not lack of interest, which is why district teachers and administrators reached out directly to girls at the elementary and middle school levels.

“Let them know what we’re doing, what engineering involves and what we’re doing at the high school,” he said. “That way they know at an early age, that may be something I want to try out. But our numbers have drastically increased.”

When Elizabethtown first started the pre-engineering pathway, Line and Ryan would look at math and science scores and then track down female students who were doing well in the subjects. Now, the high school girls in STEM classes are going to the middle and elementary schools to talk to girls about the program, and it has piqued interest.

“Some of these high school girls have stepped out and said ‘I’m going to be the one to pioneer this and say girls can do it,’ and they’re not just doing it, they’re doing it really well,” Line said. “These girls are breaking the mold of what’s expected of them.”

Kristina Jewell, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at T.K. Stone Middle, said the Women-in-Science program is important to show the girls there are opportunities besides the “traditional” career paths for females.

“I had no exposure to the STEM field at all,” she said. “There were no Women-in-Science events, there was nothing like that. I just didn’t think of it as an option for myself, so I’m really glad to see that today, at the middle school age, we’re already trying to expose them to these career pathways.”

Elizabethtown held a two-day STEM-tastic sumMIT for middle school girls in February and another is planned for April (see sidebar at right). High school girls in the Women-in-Science program reviewed applications for the event and helped select the 40 participants. They also served as mentors during the workshop.

“We really wanted girls who were either leaning toward STEM courses or were already committed and wanting to learn more,” said Emma Tompkins, an Elizabethtown junior who served as a mentor. “It was really about getting them more interested and … we’re trying to build some courage, really empower the girls and the community to want to go into these courses and fields later in life because our community needs more engineers.”

Tompkins’ dad is an engineer and she said she’s always leaned toward the math and science classes.

“I guess it was always kind of a natural thing for me to want to try and do these. Being successful in the classroom, too, just helps kind of reassure what you’re doing is what you want to do in the future,” she said. “Women-in-Science has opened a large door for me to see the impact I can make.”

Meredith Nikirk, also a junior, said she wants to pursue an engineering career after being exposed to it through Women-in-Science events. The girls get to hear from women in the fields at events like a STEM Café, which Nikirk said is “inspiring.”

During one of her pre-engineering pathway classes, she said “the girls definitely feed off each other.” When students work on a group project, the girls in one class will often team up and take on the several other groups of guys “and we win most of the time.”

“It is really empowering and inspiring that I can do this,” Nikirk said.

E-town’s sumMIT: Introducing girls to STEM

Elizabethtown Independent held its first girls-only STEM-tastic sumMIT in mid-February, which included 40 elementary students attending the two-day workshop at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.

“I feel like it’s really good that our school is giving this opportunity to girls that might not really know much about it,” said Lauren Whalen, an eighth-grade student at T.K. Stone Middle School.

The district received a grant for the workshop from Heels Together, which is a women-led investor group and is part of the Central Kentucky Community Foundation. The curriculum was provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Seventh- and eighth-grade students had to apply to participate in the workshop, with only 40 spots available. The workshop served as an introduction to STEM for the girls, who learned about making something to scale.

Emily Pike, also an eighth-grader, has been involved in STEM programs since the fourth grade. She said she’s a creative person but “I think it’s useful to just have background knowledge on STEM careers just in case you want to in the future.”

Pike said she thinks it’s important to have women in every career field to have different points of view on a subject.

Eighth-grade student Mehfuza Mustari, who wants to be a doctor, said she believes “that women do have a voice in science. Before I came in I did feel a little bit nervous but now I feel a lot more powerful, to be honest, because now I know what’s going on in the class and I know what I’m going to do.”

Mustari said all females deserve to know what opportunities are available.

“I think it’s important to have both males and females to see exactly what opportunities they have,” she said, “because cooking’s just not for girls, and engineering and driving and race cars aren’t just for boys.”

Mustari said it is great to know so many other girls are interested in STEM.

“I thought it was just me alone, but now it feels like there are more people that understand you,” she said. “It actually helps me, because sometimes I felt like I’d be judged, like ‘Oh, you’re just trying to be a dude.’ ‘No.’ Now, seeing all these girls, we can all just say ‘No, we’re actually trying to pursue our dreams.’”