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In the News

February 23, 2009

Patching the middle school science gap

How do you get middle school girls to attend science classes on a Saturday?

A relatively new program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, seems to have found the way. Girls' Science Investigations (GSI) is an annual program in its second year that is open to girls in the New Haven community.

GSI focuses on girls in middle school — one point on the education continuum where girls often lose interest in science. Four times a year, young women in sixth through eigth grade can attend sessions at the Yale campus to cover a range of topics, including gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear physics, and extraterrestrial life. Participation has nearly doubled in one year.

Participants not only get to "play" and see science in action, they also get to meet and interact with women who are successful in a mostly male-dominated field. The majority of the volunteers and scientists involved with the program are women.

GSI increases girls' confidence in science and seeks to spark enough interest for the girls to continue studying science. The GSI program is free for participating schools and is funded through grants, Yale University's Department of Physics, and its Office of New Haven and State Affairs.

Source: Yale Daily News