Program for Eastern Iowa girls teaches hundreds about STEM careers

IOWA CITY - CPR. How to suture wounds. The importance of noting observations during a scientific experiment.

These are just a handful of topics that nearly 200 middle school girls from Eastern Iowa learned about this past weekend during a University of Iowa program that aimed to reverse a longtime trend.

On Saturday, 191 middle school students gathered in the Medical Education Research Facility on the UI campus for the sixth annual Girls Go STEM event, which focuses on teaching participants about STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math - careers.

'Historically, women have not been represented in STEM, so we need to catch ourselves up with that and not put our girls in that situation to say, ‘this will be hard for you, just because you're a girl,' ” said Jackie Kleppe, director of collegiate and community relations with the University of Iowa Health Care, which hosts the program as part of the Southeast Iowa STEM Hub.

Gov. Terry Branstad has promoted STEM curriculum as a part of the Governor's STEM Advisory Council since 2013.

The free Girls Go STEM program is for girls in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, which organizers say is a key age to retain a young woman's interest in a science- or math-related field.

Participating students chose four of 16 sessions - hosted by various departments across the university - that featured hands-on activities specific to a particular field. Students who attended the College Dentistry's session learned how to fill cavities, while those who attended the chemical engineering session learned how to test air quality using high-tech gadgets.

While the program in the past has focused on general health sciences, organizers say they've opened up the programs for other departments to participate in the last two years.

Kara Thomas, 11, a sixth-grader at Wickham Elementary School in Coralville, said her favorite session involved learning how to make lip balm as part of a pharmaceuticals program. This was her first time attending Girls Go STEM.

Thomas said before the program, she hadn't thought about a job in any of the STEM fields.

'But now that I've learned about it, I'm thinking about it,” Thomas said. 'I thought the pharmacy was really interesting.”

Encouraging participants to consider a career in one of the featured departments is the main goal of the program, said organizers and instructors.

'It's very much important to me,” said Radhika Anaredy, a graduate student at the University of Iowa working toward her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry who was an instructor on Saturday in the chemistry department's session. 'I think more female students should go into science because right now, I see that many girls are not in the program, so we'd like to encourage more girls to go into science and be independent.”

Researchers have found that middle school is often a time young women loose interest in subjects pertaining to math or science, according to data from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

According to the center, women account for about 20 percent of STEM-related bachelor's degrees in the United States, despite the fact the majority of college graduates and master's degree holders are women.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, women make up less than a quarter of the STEM-related workforce.

'Last year, we did an evaluation after the event, and I think 80-some percent said their interest in STEM has increased after attending this event,” said Jayme Crawford, coordinator for collegiate health at the University of Iowa Health Care.

Aside from the girls, 195 parents also attended Saturday's event, where they learned about adolescent health and about women in STEM-related fields.

Crawford, who manages the adult programming, said the goal is to help parents understand how to help their girls pursue STEM interests.

'(We want them to) deter away from those stereotypes that (their daughters) are not good at math and science,” Crawford said.

l Comments: (319) 368-8536; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com