Teen's science camp in Westwood helps girls expand their horizons

Article here. Excerpt:

'Women represented 27 percent of workers in science and engineering jobs in 2010, according to the National Science Foundation. And while women are either equally represented or surpass men in obtaining undergraduate or advanced degrees in the social or biosciences, women still lag behind men in the physical sciences and mathematics. In computer science and engineering, women represent less than 30 percent of those seeking degrees, according to the foundation.

In Westwood, the genders are more balanced in a STEM course at the eighth-grade level, where it is one of a group of required electives. Now, the high school is working to increase girls' participation in those courses at advanced levels, and Adelyn Perez, an applied technology teacher at the high school, said she has seen more girls sign up, possibly because the courses increasingly are oriented around design and problem-solving.
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Having Herzing act as a role model in the sciences and introducing the girls to STEM fields at a young age could help to steer them toward taking advanced classes — like computer-aided design, electricity and electronics, or fabrication and design — at the high school level, Perez said.'