Encouraging the next generation of women in science and math
By Steve Blodgett
Lawrence Today magazine, Summer 2004
Where
will the next Marie Curie* be found? The next Lise Meitner?**
The next Rosalind Franklin?***
*Marie Curie discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium and was the first person to win two Nobel prizes.
**Lise Meitner calculated the potential energy that would be released by splitting a uranium atom but refused to take part in the Manhattan Project.
***Rosalind Franklin was the first person to recognize the helix shape of DNA.
Quite likely, tomorrow’s women of science are to be found in the seventh-
and eighth-grade classrooms of today, for it is there that the seed is
being planted — that is, if it is being planted.
In 1992, the American Association of University Women released a landmark
study, funded by the Ford Foundation, titled “How Schools Shortchange Girls.” Among
its conclusions were that girls in grades K-12 are discouraged from pursuing
nontraditional courses of study such as mathematics and science and that,
beginning in middle school, many girls experience a drop in confidence
and self-esteem
that subsequently affects their performance in those subjects, observations
that resonated with educators across the nation.
The AAUW study, along with other research on mathematics and science
education at the middle and high school levels, sparked a number of initiatives
to
engage girls in math and science. Colleges and universities across the
country began
to offer enrichment activities targeted specifically at that audience,
such as the Girls and Science Camp sponsored by the Vanderbilt University
Medical
Center or Smith College’s Summer Science and Engineering Program.
These efforts have had one goal in common: raising the aspirations and
self-esteem
of young women when it comes to mathematics, science, and engineering.
In
2002, two Lawrence University professors, Karen
Nordell, assistant professor
of chemistry (far right), and Eugénie
Hunsicker, assistant professor of mathematics (second from right),
decided it was time Lawrence did something similar. Working with teachers
and administrators at Roosevelt Middle School in Appleton, they established PRYSM — Partners
Reaching Youth in Science and Math. (Lawrence science students pictured
above are, left to right: Becky Heinen, ’06, Laura Lapczynski, ’04, and
Natalie Sturicz, ’05.)
With initial funding from the Women’s Fund of the Community Foundation
for the Fox Valley Region, Inc., the PRYSM program matches women students
from Lawrence with strong interests in mathematics and science with eighth-grade
girls
from Roosevelt.
Meeting weekly with the girls during or after school, PRYSM volunteers
serve as both mentors and role models of academic success in mathematics
and science,
tutoring and helping them with their homework, conducting experiments
and demonstrating, and leading occasional field trips to area destinations
of science interest.
The experiments — such as putting a grape in water and adding a solution
to make it float or demonstrating how fractions are used in cooking — are “always
hands-on and usually messy,” says Rebecca Heinen, ’06, Champlin,
Minnesota, who has been involved in the program since her freshman year. “We
really let the girls run the activity and encourage them to figure out for
themselves what happened and why. It’s fun to observe how they
think and to see how happy they are when they figure out the answer.”
Explaining the importance of the one-to-one mentoring relationships fostered
through PRYSM, Nordell observes, “Research has indicated trends in ‘interest
attrition’ in math and the sciences among girls during middle school.
Through the PRYSM program, we’re hoping to nurture and encourage
those interests among female students during that critical period in
their education.”
The aims of PRYSM are two-fold. The program seeks to improve academic performance
and increase the enthusiasm for and confidence of middle school girls,
especially minority and low-income girls, in math and science and, in
doing so, encourage
future participation in elective high school mathematics and science
courses, as well as generating interest in attending college in those subjects.
At the same time, PRYSM is intended to further develop camaraderie among
Lawrence
women undergraduates pursuing a mathematics or science education and
to
solidify their interests and skills in those fields through their involvement
in teaching
younger students.
“What PRYSM is about is giving girls a sense of confidence but also a sense
of community, letting them see that there is a strong community of women
in science,” says Hunsicker. “By showing them women college
students, not that much older than themselves, who are pursuing science
and are involved
in research, we are trying to send the message that success in math
and science is attainable.”
"Early on, Eugénie and I had a conversation about how many
terrific young women we have at Lawrence studying math and science and
what a wonderful
resource
that might be for the community,” Nordell adds. “We thought,
why not encourage them to share their talents, their gifts, and their
enthusiasm
more broadly, in particular with young girls. As teachers, we know
how meaningful it is to teach someone, to learn with someone. We viewed
PRYSM
as a way Lawrence
students could similarly engage in that positive experience.”
On a Saturday in early February, Professors Nordell and Hunsicker took
PRYSM to yet another level, hosting GEMS Day at the college. GEMS, or
Girls Exploring
Math and Science, brought seventh and eighth-grade girls from schools
throughout Appleton and the Fox Valley to campus for a day of hands-on
science and
math workshops conducted by Lawrence faculty members and students. More
than 70
middle school students, 40 Lawrence undergraduate women, and five math
and science faculty members participated in this first day-long celebration
of
things scientific and mathematical.
The GEMS Day workshops included:
•
What Works Best in the Arctic: Fur, Fat, or Feathers? (Elizabeth De Stasio, ’83,
biology)
• Rainbows, Light, and Color! (Mary Blackwell, chemistry)
• Symmetries and Patterns: How Is Symmetry Related to the Patterns
in Tie-Dye
T-Shirts? (Eugénie Hunsicker, mathematics)
•
Collecting Data Through Sampling: Why You Shouldn’t Simply Ask Your
Best Friends What They Think! (Joy Jordan, mathematics)
• Making Ferrofluid: A Magnetic Fluid That Dances and Spikes! (Karen Nordell,
chemistry).
As a natural complement to the PRYSM program, GEMS Day seeks to
introduce a larger audience of middle school girls to the rewards
and fascinations
of scientific
inquiry and provide them with exposure to a wider range of subjects
and careers than they currently experience in their classrooms.
By hosting
the event
on the Lawrence campus and having the girls work closely with faculty
members and undergraduates, GEMS Day has the ancillary benefit
of demystifying college for the girls and their parents, particularly
for those who will
be the first
generation in their family to attend college.
"At this point, PRYSM really only involves a handful of students
at one
particular middle school,” says Nordell. “With GEMS Day, we sought
to have a wider community impact and reach many more girls. We
wanted it
to be fun,
obviously, but we also wanted there to be substantive contact so
that the girls were really learning something and experiencing
something new.
Can enrichment activities such as PRYSM or GEMS Day really make
a difference? Professors Nordell and Hunsicker obviously believe
so,
as do others
interested in the issue. The National Council for Research on Women,
for example,
reports that girls clearly benefit from extracurricular all-girl
science programs,
noting that nearly 70 percent of high school girls who attend Smith
College’s
Summer Science and Engineering Program go on to major in science.
“
What is gratifying is how both the Roosevelt and Lawrence students have responded.
PRYSM has become ‘cool,’” says Hunsicker. “I hear from
the girls at Roosevelt exactly the sorts of things we were hoping we would
hear, like ‘my friends are jealous that I get to have a Lawrence partner.’”
Moreover, it is interesting to see the program “take on a life of its
own,” Hunsicker adds. “The Lawrence students have really started
to feel that this is their project — and it has been theirs from the
very beginning — they have taken ownership.”
"To see the Lawrence students taking the initiative and feeding
on the enthusiasm from the Roosevelt girls, is important,” adds
Nordell, and one indication that PRYSM is succeeding.
Professors Nordell and Hunsicker already have plans to expand the
Roosevelt Middle School pilot program to include seventh graders
and to increase
the number of PRYSM mentoring match-ups. They also hope, with support
from such
potential funding sources as the American Association of University
Women, that they may not only be able to continue both PRYSM and
GEMS Day for
many years to come but also bring middle-school girls to the Lawrence
campus more
often and offer a wider array of group field trips.
“By expanding the program to seventh graders, we are trying to provide
a little more continuity,” says Hunsicker. “The girls will have
a two-year period to work with and know a partner rather than just
the
one.”
Through the dedication of committed teachers like Karen Nordell
and Eugénie
Hunsicker and the undergraduate women at Lawrence involved in PRYSM
and GEMS Day activities, the prospects for cultivating what will
become the next generation
of women in science and mathematics appear all the brighter. Who
knows, the next Marie Curie may actually be a “gem” in
the rough at Roosevelt Middle School in Appleton.