SCIENCE MATTERS
Female students encouraged to pursue studies in science, technology
Lumsden High School teacher Carla Cooper works hard to overcome the stereotype that girls are somehow not suited to science. It’s one of the reasons she has won a 2018 Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Katie Dermody, Devyn Dunn and Allysa Doull were only missing lab coats.
Seated in Carla Cooper’s busy science classroom at Lumsden High School, they explained their latest work in biology 30, vials of fruit flies on the table before them.
Like the lab technicians in the blockbuster movie Jurassic World, their task in their final weeks of school was to genetically modify a species — in this case, creating fruit flies with white eyes, in a species that usually has red eyes.
“We’re trying to … make that recessive trait come out and hoping they won’t die in the mix of it,” Dermody said with a laugh.
Genetics is part of the biology 30 curriculum, but Cooper took it to a new level after seeing Jurassic World.
“They make this Indominus Rex with all these little pieces of genes from other animals, and I say, ‘We are going to be Jurassic World lab techs and you’re going to make a Super Fly,’” Cooper explained.
“She’s definitely got some crazy ideas, but it’s lots of fun and it kind of makes genetics a lot easier to understand, because it’s a pretty big unit,” said Dermody, who, having just finished Grade 11, is four years into her plan of becoming a medical doctor.
“Thanks to Ms. Cooper, things should be a little bit easier with crossing and looking at species,” agreed Doull, who wants to become a veterinary technician, working with livestock. “It’s pretty exciting.”
Dermody and Doull are prepared to join the ranks of women who make up the majority of young graduates working in health professions.
According to the 2016 Canadian census, 64 per cent of graduates aged 25 to 34 who had medical degrees were women; 85 per cent of young graduates working in health diagnostic and treatment were women.
However, men were much more likely to study engineering and computer sciences. Fewer than five per cent of women in university obtained a bachelor’s degree in these fields, compared with more than 25 per cent of men in university.
It’s perhaps for this reason that there remains a stereotype that women and girls aren’t interested in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — or that they’re bad at these subjects.
“I have a lot of girls that come in and say, ‘I just don’t get science,’” said Cooper. “Do you not really get science, or have you been led to believe that boys are better at math and science than girls, and girls are better at English? So it’s trying to build that confidence.”
She believes the stereotype will be “demolished” as society continues to evolve.
Margaret Kuzyk, a civil engineer for more than three decades, agreed.
“There’s always been men and women both that are good at both, but our culture is changing so that more women are in the workforce, and there is the opportunity now to capitalize on your strengths,” said Kuzyk, who lives in Saskatoon. “It used to be that Dad went out to work and he did all the business stuff, and Mom stayed home and cooked for the kids — generalizing, of course. But we’re in a different world now, and so women have the opportunity to follow their strengths.
“I think it was just a bad stereotype that, it’s going — slowly, but it’s going.”
In Doull’s view, it’s going too slowly. She rolled her eyes at the mention of the prevailing stereotype that, as a young woman, she should have no interest or skill in science.
She heard as much from a few young men during an open house at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alta., where Doull will study veterinary technology.
“‘Oh my God, the girls are never going to want to touch this (specimen) because it’s so gross,’” she recalled them saying.
“Half the time we’re going to be out in barns learning, because we learn on sheep, and the guys are like, ‘Oh, the girls are going to have their hair up and their makeup all done and they’re going to get all dirty,’” she added.
“No, we’re actually there to learn, we’re actually there to get in the mud, we’re actually there to get dirty. We’re not going to stand there and watch you guys do it, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to smudge my makeup.’”
Dermody has been teased for studying so hard, being called “the goody-good or the teacher’s pet.”
Kuzyk said she never felt disadvantaged by her gender, in a career that began in the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering in the early 1980s.
However, she was one of a small minority.
“There (were) 10 (women) out of 200 or so that graduated,” said Kuzyk, adding that her female classmates were brave.
“Because engineering has typically been seen as a man’s world, and to be somebody different in the larger group, it’s their world and you’re breaking into it, it takes a little bit of bravery.”
But, Kuzyk said, in the “professional” and “collegial” field, “once you get working on the work, the stereotypes can really easily disappear. Women don’t need to be afraid of doing the work, because they’ll be accepted.”
Kuzyk worked across Saskatchewan as a civil engineer, including in Saskatoon as a chief building officer for the federal corrections system. She oversaw construction projects at every prison and parole facility on the Prairies from 2004 to 2008. In 1997, Kuzyk was the first woman elected president of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS). She never felt it was a milestone, but said “it was time for a female to be a leader for our profession in the province,” and the people who elected her recognized that.
I have a lot of girls that come in and say, ‘I just don’t get science.’ Do you not really get science, or have you been led to believe that boys are better at math and science than girls, and girls are better at English?
Today, APEGS supports Engineers Canada’s 30 by 30 initiative, to raise the percentage of newly licensed engineers who are women to 30 per cent by 2030.
The national average (and Saskatchewan’s statistic) has stuck at 17 per cent for the past three years.
In Saskatchewan, there was a 1.6-per-cent increase between 2014 and 2016.
Kuzyk believes the low number of women in engineering might be due to a misconception about the work.
“I think there’s a lot of women that want to make this a better world for everybody, they ’re more nurturing and concerned about the people — I’m generalizing — but they don’t see that they can do that in engineering,” said Kuzyk.
“Engineering is a place where you can help people, but you help people in a broad sense, you help the community,” as in building water and sewer systems, for example.
Community health was the final project’s theme in Cooper’s environmental science class.
Kaitlyn Harrison and her classmates spent their final weeks of the semester on a case study exploring the fictional town of Lumen, where there are three hog facilities and a poultry plant.
The students’ mission was to determine why the residents were getting sick.
The students tested groundwater from nearby lakes, rivers and creeks to assess the water’s ph level. They studied vinegar’s impact on various materials, to simulate acid rain. They considered the influence of pesticides and fertilizers on soil.
“I like doing the labs. It’s just nice to do hands-on learning,” said Harrison, who plans to study agriculture in university.
“I like learning about the environment and making it better.”
While Harrison has always been interested in math and science — “solving problems and doing experiments” — she said Cooper motivates her to do well.
Likewise, a teacher motivated Cooper to do well, back in a Grade 12 biology class.
At Central Collegiate in Moose Jaw, Cooper vividly remembers her teacher Allan Hill blowing up a frog ’s lungs with a straw.
“I was like, ‘That’s so cool!’ “He’s the reason why I’m a teacher. So whenever I feel like we’re not doing enough, I just keep that in my mind, ‘OK, we need to do things again.’”
Cooper’s whole teaching method is about encouraging her students to think critically, “not just, ‘OK, we’re in this classroom, we’re learning X, Y and Z, and then I’m going to cram it, write it for the final and forget it.’”
Cooper said she was always interested in science growing up, but had a hard time understanding it.
“I took all my maths over twice. I never failed, but a 50 wasn’t good enough. The only science I didn’t take over twice was bio,” said Cooper.
“I spent a semester upgrading after I graduated, so I get the struggle, because it can be a very difficult subject.
“I want to make it so that the student who is the most confused in the room feels like I can relate to them.”
She also themes each course, to make it more interesting.
“I think that’s how I get the kids,” said Cooper, who was honoured in May with a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM.
In environmental science, students are international travellers, learning about agriculture and fighting world hunger.
When Cooper taught health science, her theme was Grey’s Anatomy. Her students were put into residence groups, wore lanyards and called each other “doctor.” As a final project, they had to explain why a patient lived or died.
In wildlife management, a locally developed course, the students are directly involved in determining what they learn.
“I think if students are not acting ambitious, I haven’t tapped into their interests yet, so that’s what I’m trying to get at,” Cooper said.
Maureen Bourke has a similar philosophy, as the co-ordinator of the U of S Sci-fi day camps.
“If you start with the expectation that girls are going to be interested in science, they’re going to follow through and be interested in science,” Bourke said.
For 16 of the camp’s 29 years, the university has offered a Girl Power component to the summer camp, activities exclusive to girls and facilitated mostly by women.
“What we’ve identified is to encourage girls to go into STEM fields, they need to have a safe place to explore that,” said Bourke.
“If they can study in an all-girl environment with female instructors, that encourages more girls to go into STEM fields.”
To that end, the Girl Power camp — as well as the Discover STEM conference that occurs each May — takes boys out of the equation.
“You get away from that male/ female dynamic,” said Bourke. “If a girl is reticent about stepping forward, they’re more likely to do that, we have found, in an all-female space. They can take on those leadership roles.”
In these scenarios, most of the instructors are women, which provides a further advantage to the girls participating: It can show the girls that they could also work in scientific fields.
“We believe that’s one of the barriers that’s out there. If you’re not exposed to the idea that this is a possible career path for you, you’re not likely to choose it,” said Bourke.
She has personal experience in this. Before a career as a lawyer, Bourke was on a scientific path.
But,“in the early ’80s, there were not a lot of women in computing science, and so I wasn’t encouraged to continue and there wasn’t the recognition of the need to have” women in the program, said Bourke.
For more than 30 years, Saskatchewan Polytechnic has sought to encourage women in trades and technology.
At campuses in Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw, there are workshops and courses to provide opportunities for women to try out trades. All are taught by women working in trades and technology, which provide a “safe and supportive work environment” for women.
“Trades is seen as a man’s profession, so it’s challenging for women to identify being in a trades career, especially when they don’t see many role models,” said Jessica Baldwin, the provincial facilitator of Women in Trades and Technology (WITT).
“So that’s what’s critical for our programming, is that we have those female role models to identify a successful woman who is working in trades or technology and it’s kind of ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ type of attitude.”
WITT offers an exploration course for girls and women aged 15 and up, which are led by female trades professionals, to learn skills in auto body, building systems, carpentry, electrical, machining, civil engineering technology, water resources, mining engineering and other areas.
There’s a mentorship program for students to access throughout their post-secondary education, and after graduation.
Sask Polytechnic also offers day camps for girls, like the two running this week in Regina.
Mind Over Metal lets girls aged 12 to 15 learn to weld. At Girls Exploring Trades and Technology, girls in that age range get to use tools and work on projects throughout the week.
At the Sci-fi camps in Saskatoon, the girls’ activities range from doing “super cool chemistry stuff ” with a female lab instructor, to construction challenges led by female engineering students.
“That way, they see women doing super interesting things and go, ‘Hey, I could do that as well,’” said Bourke.
“For a lot of women, they haven’t been exposed to a lot of trades or technology skills in their history, and I think providing opportunity for them to have access to instructors and to the tools, it maybe takes the intimidation factor out of the classroom,” Baldwin agreed.
“Providing access to opportunities is really critical to inspire women to think about different careers.”
For Dermody, a mentor inspired her to pursue medicine — namely, her 21-year-old sister Kara, who is studying physiology and pharmacology in Saskatoon.
“I guess just watching my sister go through it all, having someone older than you, a role model almost, just helped me a lot,” she said.
I like doing the labs. It’s just nice to do hands-on learning. I like learning about the environment and making it better. KAITLYN HARRISON, above, who plans to study agriculture in university