Expanding Girls' Science Horizons Wins Nod for Public Service

One of the lingering myths relating to gender is that school-aged boys are better than their female peers at science and math. Happily, as more evidence to the contrary comes to light, the myth withers. Time Magazine, in a 2008 article, reported on a then newly released study showing no significant gap whatsoever between boys and girls in science and math performance.

Still, as a report released this week by AAUW (American Association of University Women) indicates, this performance equity remains slow in translating into career choices, with women gaining ground but still lagging behind men in the science and engineering workplace.

Even otherwise intelligent people can still struggle to keep myth separated from fact on this matter. You'll recall that Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers received a taste of his own shoe leather in 2006 by publicly stating that the gap between number of men and women in technical professions arose from innate, gender-based performance differences. The outcry that ensued would soon lead to his resignation as president of Harvard University.

But as the National Science Board (NSB) indicates with their selection of the Expanding Your Horizons Network (EYH) as recipient of their 2010 Public Service Award, encouraging girls to pursue careers in math and science is the important and logical next step in helping to translate girls' equal abilities into exciting and rewarding professional lives.

EYH's mission is dedicated to encouraging girls and young women to investigate and enthusiastically pursue work in science. Through seminars, workshops, and facilitating mentoring programs, EYH exists to shatter the myth of the technical world as some stodgy old boys club. As a personal note, it was certainly my very good fortune during my earlier professional life as an environmental geologist in the late 1980s and early 1990s to work alongside and under the direction of women whose technical and managerial talents in geology and engineering were second to nobody's.

In recognizing EYH for their hard work and for making a positive difference, the NSB puts the Oakland, Calif. based organization alongside the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the PBS TV series NOVA, past Public Service Award recipients, for their having "made substantial contributions to increasing public understanding of science and engineering in the United States."

Photo by Argonne National Laboratory via Flickr.