Thursday, August 26, 2010

This summer I enrolled ThePrincess (my 4.5 year old) in a summer science camp at a local children's museum in our area. She is starting to climb the walls and we have a full month until preschool starts up again in the fall.

The camps are designed for children aged 4-6 and are split into 2 week sessions with different specialized topics. Examples of the topics were subjects like rockets/aerospace, botany, zoology, bugs/reptiles, going green/environment, farm animals, big machines, etc.

The session we chose was dinosaurs/archeology.

On the surface it appeared as pretty generic kid-friendly material with a decent science base. They would be making plaster of paris "fossils", digging though the sandbox for shark teeth and trilobites, studying dinosaur skeletons, making paper mache dinosaur eggs etc.

Typical 4 year old stuff. Great. Sign us up!


Never did it cross my mind that dinosaurs would be such a gender specific topic. When we arrived at camp on Monday I was unhappily surprised to find that the camp consisted of 12 boys and 2 girls. ONLY 2 GIRLS! What the hell?

I have heard the unfortunate statistics (and reasons) that girls tend to lose interest in the sciences by the 8th grade, but I was always under the impression that early on (before 4th grade) boys and girls had equal interest in science. That is why I was so surprised there were nearly NO girls in this 4-6 year old camp.

Looking back , I understand dinosaurs could be considered a predominantly "boy" subject, but a 1 to 6 ratio is still a pretty huge gap.

It is no secret that boys tend to lean towards subjects in the physical sciences, while girls tend to have more interest in the biological sciences, but I had just assumed there were be a few other girls at dinosaur camp. WELL, AT LEAST MORE THAN ONE OTHER GIRL!

I originally wasn't going to blog about our experience, until I read YoungFemaleScientist's post yesterday with this quote about this exact subject matter.
From her blog: "And then I have to read these idiotic emails from various women in science groups lamenting how they can't figure out why more younger women don't want to go into science. And how we need to do more outreach with little girls to get them interested.

I keep trying to tell them, there's no inherent difference in girls vs. boys at the level of interest. All kids, when shown cool science demos, think it's fucking cool. Because it is. And only some kids want to know how it works. And only some kids are encouraged to pursue finding out how stuff works. Probably, in our culture, we do encourage boys more, but I think that difference happens more at home than it does at school."

I agree with her, that there isn't anything intrinsically different in these kids, but where are all these girls at Dinosaur camp?

At this stage it is all about parental influence. The girls aren't being encouraged to 'go for it' at the same rate as the boys. The girls are being set up (by their biggest influences) to believe that dinosaurs, bugs, rockets are all "boy" subjects, and that they best stick to their Princess Ballerina Camps. (Which ThePrincess did enroll in earlier this summer, I am am equal opportunity mom.)

As a parent, I thought it needed to be about balance. That is why I (clearly unlike a lot of other parents) enrolled her in Dinosaur Science Camp. I didn't think at age 4 we needed to follow the stereotypes. Well, in reality, I didn't even realize there were stereotypes until they smacked me in the face.

This wasn't only dinosaurs. As I looked though the list of other camp options, they seemed to be heavily geared towards boys too. Bugs? As a mom of 2 girls, trust me: Not a ton of girls are begging to go to bug camp. Same with rockets and big machines. Very "masculine" subjects, even in the minds of 4 year olds. I see that now.

Unfortunately the whole experience backfired on me. ThePrincess HATED be one of the only girls, and was dying to get back to Princess Ballerina Camp where she "fit in". She even was told by her fellow classmates that "dinosaurs are for boys."

Damn. That sucks.

I don't have to wonder whatever gave them that impression. Even at age 4 kids know their gender roles and they already have their ideas of what a scientist should look like. (Something I have blogged about before.)

So what is a parent to do?

It is a vicious cycle. Without girls going to camp and making it fun, there is no motivation for other girls to want to join. No preschooler is going to want to be the minority. As a parent you feel like you are swimming up stream. If science camp is such an awful experience at age 4, how am I ever going to convince her that she belongs and should try it again next year? How am I going to prove that boys haven't cornered the market on dinosaurs, or bugs or whatever else she finds interesting.

It is all so disheartening.

Clearly other people feel the same way too. USA today just published a story about Sally Ride's new Science Academy which is educating teachers on how to engage kids in science (both boys AND girls.)
From the article: It's essential for girls to see examples of women in whatever career they want to pursue, says Ride, who sees herself as a role model. "I'm an example of someone who was a pretty normal 10-year-old girl who grew up to be an astronaut," she says.

Who are we kidding? Sally Ride wasn't 'normal.' I would bet she was one of the only girls at space camp. She was fighting the gender stereotypes from the get-go.

That fact is glaringly apparent when you realize that Sally Ride's foundation also sponsors Sally Ride Science Camps EXCLUSIVELY for girls in the 4th through 9th grades. She, more than anyone, knows that girls want to be surrounding by their peers who are other girls. THAT is how they feel 'normal' and accepted. Not by being in the 15% female fraction.

But it begs the question.. at that point is it too late?

If the girls are already missing from science camp at age 6, the message that they don't belong there is already stirring around in their heads (if not being told to straight to their faces). It is going to take a lot of Sally Ride Science Camps to overcome those feelings.