What was your favorite color when you were five? Many young girls like pink, a stereotypically female color.
Do girls who love pink ever grow up to be women who do work that historically has more often been done by men? What can we do to encourage all children to think of themselves as capable and support an interest in science? Remember to alternate saying “boys and girls” with “girls and boys”? Monitor who we call on and call on girls 50% of the time? Be sure to display pictures of all kinds of people, including women, doing science?
Many women scientists say they pursued a career in science because a teacher or other mentor encouraged them, and believed in their capabilities, say Ashley Campbell and Gerald Skoog in Preparing Undergraduate Women for Science Career, (The College Science Classroom, March/April 2004 33 (5):24-26). This idea is echoed in many of the life stories of women scientists on the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration’s the “Women of NASA” page. Print out and post some of the photos to put in a display of scientists at work to inspire and inform children. and testify to women’s presence in science.
The Institute of Educational Sciences Practice Guide “Encouraging Girls in Math and Science” (2007) recommends five key practices. View it on the U.S. Department of Education website. The practical suggestions from Doing What Works are geared towards middle and high school age students but are food for thought for all of us.

A recent report from a National Research Council panel states, “women are not applying for tenure-track jobs at research-intensive universities at the same rate that they are earning Ph.D.s” although “those who do apply are interviewed and hired at rates equal to or higher than those for men.“ The report also noted that “The surveys revealed that most institutional strategies to try to increase the proportion of women in the applicant pool — such as targeted advertising and recruiting at conferences — did not show significant effectiveness, the report says.  One strategy did appear to make a difference: Having a female chair of the search committee and a high number of women on the committee were associated with a higher number of women in the applicant pool.”
Implicit Association Tests taken by half a million people in 34 countries revealed that the stereotype of associating science with males is held by most of the test takers in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lead investigator Brian Nosek, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, said in UVA Today, “We found a general tendency, across every country that we investigated, that people on average have an easier time associating science concepts with male, rather than with female.”
Some tactics I use to try to reduce any suggestion of excluding girls from science are to be sure to call on girls at least half the time (yes, I count), use the pronoun “it” when talking about animals whose sex isn’t known or alternate “she” and “he”, post pictures of female and male scientists from many cultures, and ask girls as often as boys to help other children with science questions or problems. My take-away thought on this is that every early childhood teacher can do science activities with their class with eyes open to our own biases, in a way that creates a positive environment for all children for loving science. Much later in their education, some will decide not to pursue a career in science, but it won’t be because they think their gender prevents their success.
Share your tactics by clicking on the word “Comments” below!
Peggy

Have you seen the National Science Foundation’s new online magazine Science Nation? The NSF’s news release dated June 1, 2009, states that this video program will “take a dynamic, entertaining look at the research, and the researchers, that will change our lives.”
Science Nation will have a new episode every Monday. Each episode consists of a video clip (3- and 5-minute versions), which can be viewed online or downloaded, a text version of the story, and links to other resources on the topic. To date, there have been three episodes: Extremophile Hunter, Unraveling the Mysteries of Tornadoes, and Eyesight to the Blind.
These episodes could be used in a variety of ways: as suggested viewing for interested students, for when you don’t want to start a new topic but have some extra class time, to show students what scientific research looks like, or to illustrate how the sciences are connected. For example, the episode Eyesight to the Blind ties in anatomy, microchip technology, medical research, and genetics.
One suggestion to the NSF — I’d like to see an option for a printer-friendly version of the text. A Spanish version would be useful, too!

Read “Safety First” by Sarah Pounders and you can reassure your director and students’ parents that you are informed about how to avoid potential health hazards in eating food from a school garden. Did you guess that washing hands is one of the safety steps to take?
Sarah writes, “Grow it, know it, try it … love it! Educators and parents across the country are using this philosophy to get young gardeners hooked on fruits and vegetables.” Children in my classes take to gardening even when it’s a new experience. The crops that we can grow and harvest before the end of school include snap peas, chives, oregano and other herbs, and strawberries. In a small (1m x 3m) raised bed garden there is room for just a few plants, enough so every child gets a taste of what we grow.
Children seem to observe most closely when planting or watering. Some try hard to keep their clothes and shoes clean, sometimes because of personal preference and sometimes because of parental warnings. To keep it a positive experience, I try to help them limit the mess. Child-size tools can help them control where the dirt goes. How do you handle this in your garden?
Maintaining even a container garden requires a commitment to water and weed. Neglect is the main difficulty faced by the gardens at my schools (I’m not at each school every day). Gardens do best with some daily attention—not hours and hours but at least a few minutes to water when needed, look for “wildlife”, or tie a plant to a support. The rich environment of the school garden is under-used. Sometimes the peas children planted in a raised bed don’t grow taller than a few inches because children were allowed to climb up into and through the bed to look through the fence. Other times children are not made aware of the Cabbage White butterfly caterpillars chewing up collard leaves. Without adult encouragement to attend the garden, zinnia seedlings may dry up rather than sprout up.
I need some advice on how to enlist other teachers to help the children water at least a few times a week, and spend a few minutes talking about any changes. Or maybe I should be planting hardier plants!
Tell me what to try,
Peggy

I received the greatest compliment while sitting at the lunch table with a mixed age group of my students who are enrolled in the end-of-school-year camp. The children were playing a conversation-starter game they’ve developed of asking the lunchers to raise their hand if they fall into the named group (have a red lunch box, have an apple in their lunch, like to eat pretzels…). Then a five-year-old sitting next to me called out, “Raise your hand if you’re a scientist!” and all the hands went up.
What a gift to have confirmation that the science activities we did throughout the three years I taught him were seen as a process with the students as the central actors, and that all the children self-identify as scientists. Thank you to my students.