Girl Power

Last summer, Tami Zack, a 15-year-old sophomore at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, attended an engineering camp at the University of Maryland. "There were about four guys to every one girl there," she said. "The people at engineering camp ... were talking about ... when they were little they would play with toy cars and stuff like that," Tami said. "And I said I wanted to, but I never got anything like that.

"If men go into science now, it's probably from childhood, because they play with cars, and we're given dolls, I think," she said.

Tami may have spotted one reason girls shy away from math and science, but there are many others.

Recent studies show that in fourth grade, boys and girls are about even 68 percent to 66 percent when asked whether they like science and would consider becoming a scientist when they grow up. By eighth grade, twice as many boys like science as girls do, and the number of girls taking higher-level courses in high school drops dramatically.

Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut and a physicist, has dedicated herself the last few years to changing the perception that girls on the whole aren't very good at those subjects, or that math and science are boring. Her company, Sally Ride Science, offers science camps, books, teacher development and other programs aimed at encouraging girls toward science studies and careers at a time when their interest in it slumps.

On April 1, Caltech will host the Sally Ride Science Festival, a fair for middle-school girls, their parents and teachers that can reawaken a fascination they may not have experienced since watching rock-candy crystals grow on a string or red-dyed water creep up a celery stalk.

"It certainly isn't academic ability that's causing the disproportionate number of girls and boys (in higher-level science classes)," said Karen Flammer, senior vice president of Ride's company and a research physicist at the University of California, San Diego. "So what Sally Ride Science is trying to do with our workshops, our camps, our toy challenge competition, our publications is we are targeting girls, and we're trying to show them how fun and interesting all these fields are, that you don't have to be this typical geeky male to be a chemist or a biologist or engineer, that other girls also like doing what they're doing."

The fair offers workshops in studying ice cream, making bottle rockets, comparing senses of smell, observing earthquakes, creating polymers and watching robots at work subjects so cool that the kids may not be aware they're spending a Saturday studying chemistry, aerodynamics, genetics, geology and planetary science.

"Girls get to see hundreds of other girls spending a weekend day at a festival to do math and science and engineering activities, and it's in the context of a DJ playing music, it's in the context of food," Flammer said. "All the workshops are very fun, hands-on workshops. Somebody's not standing up in front of the classroom lecturing to them. They're actually letting them take DNA out of the strawberry or calculate the density of chocolate, so they can see that science is fun, and they can share it with their friends."

Parents also can help by holding high expectations for their daughters' performance in math and science as well as English, and by warning their girls not to succumb to peer pressure that would prompt them to dumb down in class when surrounded by boys.

"In junior high, I was always the smartest kid, and I would raise my hand and show everybody how smart I was," said Marianne Bronner-Fraser, a biology professor at Caltech and the school's first female chair of faculty. "And suddenly, when I hit ninth grade, I realized that those boys are not going to like me because I'm smart. And so I started being very quiet."

Astrophysicist and former astronaut Tammy Jernigan, who will speak at the Caltech festival, said parents and teachers should steer girls into advanced math courses in high school as often as they do boys.

"Our society is becoming increasingly technological," she said. "Not all girls and boys go into science and engineering, but even if they don't ... it's very important that they have a certain threshold level of knowledge. And that is something they should really enjoy, so it's not dull and boring or onerous."

As a child, Jernigan said she was encouraged by her mother to work hard so she could be whatever she wanted to be. Her extensive studies she holds a master's degree in engineering science and a Ph.D. in space physics and her professional success came despite discouragement from a few teachers.

"I remember in school there were teachers who would make comments about what's appropriate for girls to do and what's appropriate for boys to do," Jernigan said. "The teachers I respected and my mother had a much greater influence on me than a teacher who was misguided in his perception of what boys and girls should do."

Women scientists frequently point to the importance of role models, not just those like Ride who are mentioned in history books, but those who can lead a child by example on a daily basis. That could be a female pediatrician, a woman pharmacist or a teacher who somehow looks more impressive when she puts on a lab coat and protective glasses.

Debra Zack, Tami's mother, works at Amgen studying diseases and potential chemical therapies for them on the molecular level. She said when she entered her M.D./Ph.D. program in 1978, there were fewer than 30 women in a medical school class of 200, and only three of her professors were women.

"There weren't a lot of mentors for us, and as we move up there are so many women who do want to be mentored and look to see that there are role models ahead of them," Zack said. Medical school student bodies now are about 50-50, but other scientific fields still show signs of a glass ceiling for women, both in academics and the corporate world. Bronner-Fraser of Caltech says a comparable number of men and women are coming out of biology studies with master's and doctorates, but there is a "leaky pipeline" when it comes to women holding tenured university posts or higher-paying jobs in corporate research. Flammer said she was urged to go into science by her father, a physicist who often commended her for her math abilities.

"When I went to college, I knew I wanted to be a physics major. Freshman year, I went into advanced physics, and I went into this lecture hall and there was one other female. And I remember calling my dad that night saying, Dad, why didn't you tell me that physics wasn't for girls?' And he said, Because it is for girls. Unfortunately most girls just don't know that yet.'"

Lawrence Summers resigned recently as president of Harvard University not long after he opined publicly that men might be predisposed to be better at science and math than women. Ride addressed that issue in an interview with USA Today.

"For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences,'' Ride said. "Until the playing field has been leveled and lingering stereotypes are gone, you can't even ask the question."

Flammer said Ride probably would love for her company to become unnecessary, because it would mean women are doing as well as men in the scientific professions.

"When the statistics change that between fourth and eight grade something doesn't happen, when in eighth grade equal numbers of males and females say they like science, that they foresee pursuing it in college and careers in science, and then you continue in the pipeline and look at in college the number of majors, and then you look at careers, that there's equal numbers of males and females in these science and engineering and math careers and they're being paid similar salaries and equally respected ... then our job is done," Flammer said.

SALLY RIDE SCIENCE FESTIVAL

What: Fair aimed at fifth- through eighth-grade girls, their parents and teachers to pique the students' interest in science and math classes and related professions. It includes workshops, exhibits, booths, food, music and prizes.
Where: Caltech, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena.
When: 11 a.m to 4:15 p.m. April 1.
Tickets: $18 with advance registration through www.sallyridefestivals.com covers lunch, materials and activities.