'Girls in STEM' Camp Offered for Local Students

By Judy Bass

Building on the success of its Girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Camp for middle-school girls held in February, Minuteman High School in Lexington will offer another STEM-based educational opportunity to middle-school girls this summer called Girls in STEM Career Exploratory.

The week-long program, from August 3 through 7, 2015, will feature hands-on learning experiences to the participants, who will be mentored by female Minuteman students in the Girls in STEM Club who themselves are being mentored by women in STEM careers.

This entire STEM initiative at Minuteman has been so innovative and valuable to all the students involved that garnered national attention when it was awarded the 2015 Grand Prize in the Student2Student Recognition Program by SkillsUSA, a national organization that runs trade and leadership competitions for students in career and technical schools. The purpose of this honor, as explained on the SkillsUSA website, is “to recognize excellence and professionalism in the area of student mentoring.”

The format of Girls in STEM Career Exploratory will be similar to what Minuteman offered in February, with a few changes, explained the school’s Director of Career and Technical Education, Michelle Roche. She has been instrumental in the implementation of the Girls in STEM programs at Minuteman, along with Engineering Instructor Becky Quay and Horticulture/Landscape Technology Instructor Sarah Ard.

“We’re using pretty much the same structure [as we did in February],” Roche said. “It’s student-driven.” The STEM program in August will expand to five days from four, there might be a field trip, the participants will be given Minuteman t-shirts, and a host of enjoyable activities are in the works, Roche mentioned, some of them outdoors, such as soil testing, studying animal tracks, Frisbee physics, and much more.

The push to get more girls interested in STEM professions and education has come about due to the under-representation of females in those areas. “What we’re doing is answering a need out there,” said Roche. “Data shows we need more girls in STEM-related and non-traditional fields.”

A report titled “Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation,” issued in August 2011 by the Economics and Statistics Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, affirms Roche’s conclusion. It states, “Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 per-cent of STEM jobs.” Two possible reasons cited in the report for the relatively small number of women in STEM positions are “lack of female role models and gender stereotyping,” both of which the Girls in STEM outreach at Minuteman aims to address.

The gender situation in STEM isn’t in the forefront of the Girls in STEM curriculum at Minuteman, Roche said.
Instead, the overall intent is “just to create a positive environment for girls to use their voice and feel safe and comfortable in that environment. With all females, the competition goes away, and it’s just about the work at hand. Empowering them, that’s what this is all about.”

Female guest speakers in the Minuteman STEM program for middle-school girls do discuss gender inequality, however. Roche said they talk about their experiences in the workplace, the awareness that stereotypes are out there, and how they dealt with them.

As for the future of Girls in STEM at Minuteman, Roche said that a comment made by a reporter who visited the Girls in STEM camp in February resonated strongly with her. According to Roche, that reporter said that seeing the STEM students wearing various colored bandanas reminded her of Rosie the Riveter, the generic designation given to women who, of necessity, were pressed into service in factories, shipyards, on assembly lines and elsewhere during World War II when wartime production had to be ramped up in a hurry. Suddenly, ladies, in significant numbers, were doing labor customarily done exclusively by men – and doing it well.

“When the reporter said that,” Roche recalled, “I said, ‘There’s the way.’” That remark had triggered a new vision based upon the STEM programs in Roche’s mind, one that would expand to include girls in the trades and other non-traditional areas to, as she phrased it, “tie it all together.”

The feedback and attention Girls in STEM at Minuteman has received thus far have been “nothing but positive,” said Roche. The Boston Globe and New England Cable News have publicized it, the President and CEO of Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a nationally-known supplier of STEM curriculum from grade school to high school level, visited, State Treasurer Deb Goldberg is planning to come by during the Girls in STEM session in August, and it has generated interest at other schools.

Having these Girls in STEM events has clearly benefited Minuteman. “It’s been very good for us,” said Roche.
“It’s a great way for us to showcase what we do so well and it helps our recruitment.”

In addition, the Minuteman students in STEM who mentor the middle-school girls are learning how to work with other people in a group setting, expanding their own skills, sharpening their time management ability, and are improving at “switching gears,” in Roche’s words. “For some of them,” she noted, “it’s their first job.”

Roche defined the mission of Girls in STEM at Minuteman succinctly: “We need to do everything we can to support girls and lift them up. They’re learning what it takes to be successful.”

To register for the Girls in STEM Career Exploratory, please go to www.minuteman.org. This program is free to seventh- and eighth-grade girls in the Minuteman district, which includes the towns of Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Bolton, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Stow, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston. Free transportation is available to in-district students. For students not in-district, there is a $149 fee.
Space is limited, so register early. Please contact Michelle Roche at 781-861-6500 x7326 for more information.

Minuteman is an award-winning regional high school that gives its graduates a competitive edge in the new global economy by providing them with a high-quality career and technical education, coupled with a rigorous grounding in mathematics, English, science, and social studies. At Minuteman, students can currently major in 19 career and technical education programs at the same time they take rigorous academic courses, similar to those in traditional academic high schools. Minuteman offers a wide selection of academic courses and programs.