History

On a Friday afternoon at the Amigos School, one is likely to find a group of sixth grade girls putting on a science and magic show for kindergarten girls, punctuating the science experiments with dramatic flourishes. The high school girl helping them meets after the clubs to plan their next activity with the women graduate students in public health who lead the group. Next door, two third grade girls jump up and down excitedly when their mothers pick them up. They had just built a circuit with wires, buzzers, and light bulbs, with the help of two eighth grade girls and a pair of female engineering students from MIT. They wanted to go immediately to the back aisle of Radio Shack and find the raw materials for their next invention. It is a section of the store where girls are rarely seen. Later, at home, an eighth grade girl with academic difficulties helps her cousin answer a homework question. The next week she writes in her journal, "when he had a question...I knew the answer because we did it in science clubs for girls...we were doing a thing on center of gravity I knew everything about it."

These examples could all be visions of the future: when girls are no longer excluded from a culture that empowers boys to see themselves as competent in scientific investigation. In fact, all of these girls are participants in girls'science clubs in a highly successful program at a number of public schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the hallways, in the classrooms, and on the playground, girls at these schools are bursting with enthusiasm for science, as teen-age girls help to teach them, along with college and professional women mentors.

This positive trend among girls in Cambridge began when a group of parents who formed a Gender Issues in Education Committee at the King Open School in 1994. The committee was formed to look at discrepancies in the education of girls and boys in our schools and to find ways to combat these inequities at the King Open School. These parents are still involved as active members of the Science Club for Girls board.

The greatest failures in the education of girls in our school systems are in the disciplines of mathematics and science. The American Association of University Women’s report in 1992 found that girls'self-confidence in math and science drops precipitously in adolescence. That report, How Schools Shortchange Girls, states that girls and their teachers have less confidence in girls'ability to do mathematics and science than they do in boys'ability. As recently as September 2000 the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights reported that "disparities in participation rates in the highest levels math and science classes, exposure to the use of technology, scores on standardized tests, and the pursuit of scientific and technological careers all suggest that women do not enjoy the same educational opportunities as men" in its series on equal educational opportunity entitled Equal Educational Opportunity and Nondiscrimination for Girls in Advanced Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education: Federal Enforcement of Title IX.

In response to these statistics, the Gender Issues in Education Committee organized the first girls' science clubs in the fall of 1994 at the King Open School. It was the decision of the Gender Issues in Education Committee that one way to begin changing this trend was to provide extra support in the earliest grades.

The expectation was that one small group of girls from kindergarten through the second grade would participate in an all-girls science club after school. Nearly 60% of all of the girls in kindergarten through second grade wanted to join! Clearly the idea of learning science in an environment created to encourage girls was a popular one.