Girls investigate jobs in STEM at Little Rock camp

Aim is to uncover career possibilities

Allie Goertzen (from left), 12, Madison Caldwell, 13, and Madeline Fithen, 12, mix samples in test tubes Thursday as they learn about forensic chemistry during the Girls in STEM workshop at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock.
Allie Goertzen (from left), 12, Madison Caldwell, 13, and Madeline Fithen, 12, mix samples in test tubes Thursday as they learn about forensic chemistry during the Girls in STEM workshop at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock.

On the lower floor of the Museum of Discovery in downtown Little Rock on Thursday morning, tables were strewn with dusted fingerprints, vials of possible controlled substances and bloodstained clothing.

Two dozen girls, ages 12 to 15, were investigating.

No crime had taken place -- just another session of the museum's Girls in STEM program, a free, weeklong summer camp that educates girls about careers in science, technology, engineering and math through hands-on activities led by women who work in those fields. The goal is to encourage girls to pursue a future career they might not otherwise consider.

On Thursday, participants learned forensic techniques from scientists at the state Crime Laboratory. At one table, girls learned to dust for fingerprints, getting their hands dirty with dark powder and using a hand-held magnifying glass to distinguish between the different patterns -- arch, loop, whorl. At another, they used syringes with reagent chemicals to test whether a brown stain on a T-shirt was blood, or just ketchup or soy sauce.

In a different room, campers put on white coats over their clothes and safety goggles over their glasses. Carefully, they poured a liquid the color of cough syrup into vials containing a blue substance. If the substance contained THC, the scientists explained, the compound would separate.

Campers arrived with questions -- some technical and some forward-thinking. Had the chemists ever made a really bad mistake and had to test all over again? Did certain kinds of clothing make it harder to test for bloodstains? What made the scientists want this job? What experience did they have before?

Forensic serologist Shelby Pugh told the girls to check out the Crime Lab's college internship program once they were old enough.

"I highly encourage you guys, on anything you may be interested in doing, to shadow somebody," Pugh said. That way, they'd know if they would like a job before deciding to do it permanently, she added.

"So you don't have to go back and pay for college twice," 15-year-old Jillian Bradshaw quipped.

Girls in STEM began in 2013 with fewer than 30 participants, according to the museum. In 2017, the museum added camps in Jonesboro and Pine Bluff, with more than 160 campers across the state attending. In 2018, the program expanded again and now has camps in Little Rock, Jonesboro, Blytheville and Stuttgart.

For the camps in the Delta, coordinators chose activities that utilized the area's agricultural assets, such as a day at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart doing field work alongside female biologists.

"Whatever STEM careers are in their backyard, essentially, is what they learn," museum spokesman Kendall Thornton said.

Shannon Jones, the program's coordinator, said she hopes to expand the camps to include more cities and put on more activities year-round. The program is funded by donations or grants from organizations such as the Walmart Foundation, the Women's Foundation of Arkansas and ARCodeKids.

According to a 2015 report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, women make up about 30 percent of the STEM workforce in Arkansas. That's slightly higher than the national average, 28.8 percent.

A review of disciplines of Arkansas graduates released by the state Department of Higher Education in 2011 showed that men consistently outnumber women in STEM disciplines, finding a 6-to-1 ratio of men to women in engineering and a 5-to-1 ratio in computer science. Women were found to be more evenly represented in chemistry, biology and math.

More recent numbers from the Higher Education Department show the percentage of women studying STEM is increasing slowly, from about one-third in 2011 to more than 36 percent in 2014.

In a news release, the museum cited getting women into STEM careers as a way to close the gender wage gap. Women with such jobs earned 35 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs and 40 percent more than men with non-STEM jobs, according to a 2017 report.

A favorite activity among Little Rock campers this week was a meteorology lesson at the KTHV studio, where they got to see themselves on the news.

Jodi Barnes, a 14-year-old from Sheridan, said she liked touring the Maumelle plant for Molex, an electronic parts supplier. She said she already knew she wanted to be in engineering, since her father and grandfather work in construction.

"It's just been more of an influence on me than other things," she said.

Other careers girls at the camp said they were interested in ranged from production engineer to mermaid.

"I either want to be an architect or a lawyer. But seeing this has been really fun, so this could be an option too," Bradshaw said of the forensics session. "It's opened my eyes to new stuff."

Metro on 07/27/2018

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