EPWG: Girls in Science: Museum, University, School and Community Connections

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9453112 Johnson Inter-connected activities of Cranbrook Institute of Science and Oakland University seek to help change the infrastructure of schools and the University. The project aims to create a new generation of teachers trained to be gender fair, and to make gender-fair teaching practices more pervasive. It seeks to measure science club and other informal science experiences for girls as vehicles for changing classroom climates; and it aims to assess the value of a community-based resource center to help sustain support for girls in science education. The project builds upon a NSF-funded Model Project for Women and Girls at Cranbrook, which has addressed basic issues of gender equity through informal science activities, as well as upon more than a decade of experience in collaborative work with pre-service university students who will be the science teachers of tomorrow. These students have not yet established their patterns of classroom leadership behavior, and their attitudes toward younger students and teaching practices can still be influenced to recognize and eliminate conscious/unconscious discrimination against girls. Teams of experts on classroom gender bias are to serve as trainers in gender-fair behavior, which is then to be applied and evaluated in classrooms. A second thrust focuses on girls' science clubs and builds upon accumulating evidence that informal science activities for girls outside the classroom favorably impacts in-school science learning. Intensive evaluation is to determine if middle school girls who choose to join weekly science clubs in Pontiac demonstrate more positive behaviors in their science and math classes, and if they contribute to changes in the classroom climates. Trained Oakland University pre-service students and Cranbrook staff will lead the girls' science clubs. The third element is to provide continuing support for girls, teachers, and parents, through a resource center at Cranbrook. Mentoring assistance, ref errals, workshops, information and materials are to be readily accessible to help sustain connections among girls, parents, teachers and SEMs (science, engineering and mathematics) professionals. ***