SiS: Stay in STEM

The career pipeline which starts with a girl interested in STEM, and ends up with her being leader of a STEM company is leaky. Very leaky: in fourth grade, boys and girls like STEM equally, but only 6% of STEM CEOs are female (Credit Suisse 2021).

STEM gender differences arise in Middle School and persist through High School (Legewie and DiPrete, 2012). High school girls face numerous obstacles: they tend to underrate their ability in math, are often uncomfortable being the only girl in class, and face many stereotype threats. Girls may choose not to participate in afterschool if they will be the only girl, which can further negatively impact their confidence in STEM courses: less than 30% of students who take AP Physics C are female (Krakehl and Kelly, 2021).

In 2020, only 21% of engineering students were female (Forbes, 2022). The numbers drop even further in employment, with only 16% of the workforce in Engineering fields being women. (NSF, 2022). The pipeline from grade school to career certainly is very leaky.

Numerous excellent programs encourage more girls to participate in STEM activities, but we focus on reducing the leak. We provide interactive programming which gives girls the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to be able to join a program where they will be the only girl in the room. They will know how to handle overt and implicit gender biases, and how to establish support so they can pursue their dreams in STEM successfully.

Many educators and mentors want to help girls progress in STEM, but, as I noted in my recent Op-Ed in the Hechinger Report (Yankey and Rasmusson, 2022), they do not share the same lived experiences as today’s youth. If you have never felt the isolation of being the only female aspiring engineer in the room, it can be challenging to counsel girls struggling in this situation.

We provide a comprehensive program based on case studies in STEM settings, which educators and mentors can deploy in the classroom, after-school, or other youth activity. Our program is developed by youth, and reviewed by educators. Participants read (or watch the video) of the case, then, through role play and discussion, consider what they would do in the situation. Participants analyze what happened, and identify issues. This increases knowledge of gender bias, stereotype threat, etc. Next, they discuss options for what they would do in this situation, and work through the possible consequences. This develops the skill of decision analysis. Finally, participants consider which option they, personally, would be most comfortable in pursuing. There are no “correct” answers. Girls have the opportunity to work through situations they are likely to face in a relaxed atmosphere with role play and discussion. This will prepare them well for when they encounter situations in real life situations.

Our program has long term online follow up support and will increase the likelihood that girls will be able to traverse obstacles and persist on the STEM pathway. It will reduce the leak! 

Our solution is to provide a comprehensive, interactive program which will help girls develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to successfully persist, and thrive, in STEM. This skills-based training is aimed at girls in middle and high school, but the abilities they acquire will help them throughout their STEM careers. The problems they encounter in their careers will often be similar to those they face in middle and high school, e.g., stereotype threat, gender biases, similar issues and problems. Furthermore, as our program develops, we will incorporate programming targeted at college students, and even later we will target women in the workplace.   

 Our program is a comprehensive and youth-inspired educational tool, based on case studies of recognizable and relatable situations which are used to increase the knowledge, skills, and confidence of girls in STEM. Each case study is supported by complete teaching notes, online videos, and online support networks for further discussion.

Each case study presents a realistic STEM scenario of a girl encountering an obstacle and deciding what to do. These stories are all highly relatable and reflect the reality of being a girl in STEM in middle/high school today. Cases have presented as stories supported with online videos, which introduce the characters and the conflict. Once everyone has engaged with the story, the facilitator discusses concepts and terms useful for the discussion. The story is presented in a factual manner, without interpretation. Next, depending on the specific case, participants will engage in group discussions, role play, decision analysis, writing reflections, following prompts which guide them to consider what is happening in this scenario, from all points of view. Where possible, independent small group discussion should proceed large group discussion where small groups report out their responses.

Participants explore various possible actions and consider the short- and long-term consequences of them. There is no correct answer to any of the situations. (If there are legal issues, these are noted in the teaching notes.) This develops the decision-making skills of the participants and helps them think through difficult situations they are likely to encounter, but in a friendly and supportive environment, which will give them the confidence to navigate around roadblocks they encounter on their STEM journey.

Participants are encouraged to join in our private Discord server, where they can further discuss cases and other relevant experiences. The discord server provides support for girls in STEM as they progress through their journey. It will also provide invaluable feedback on our cases. We will also encourage participants to develop new case studies which represents situations which have not covered in our material.

We will also deliver cases studies directly via our discord server at special workshops, to increase access to our skills-based training programs. 

Our solution serves middle and high school girls who have an interest in STEM. Our focus is on equipping these girls with the power to make informed decisions, based on analysis of the problems they encounter, and to increase their knowledge of bias, confidence, inequity, and discrimination, and how it can affect their career. We also work to expand understating of concepts such as stereotype threat, hegemonic meritocracy, benevolent sexism, and cloning, and how this can affect not only their interactions with others, but also their STEM trajectory.

We are teaching these skills with the specific intent of helping girls remain in the STEM pathway. However, these skills are easily transferable to other aspects of girls’ lives, wherever they are facing similar challenges.

We provide a comprehensive educational tool which can be deployed by any mentor or teacher in a school or after-school setting. However, we want to reach as many girls as possible, and we are keenly aware of the specific difficulties of middle and high school girls in rural settings, and other settings were where resources are limited. We will be running our case studies on a private server discord, using the same teaching guides we established with the in person setting, so that our program is available to as many girls as possible. For girls who are not ready to participate in a workshop, we will have easily accessible support materials.

We understand middle and high school girls because our founder is a high school freshman, who is currently living out many of the experiences which she turned into case studies. She actively participates and mentors across many networks of middle, high school, and college girls, who are living similar STEM experiences.

One of the advantages of having long term support as well as case study workshops on discord, is that we will get continual feedback from the girls we are serving. We will update cases as necessary, and we will develop new cases based on the experiences of the discord group. Although many of the challenges faced by girls in the STEM are universal, there are specific scenarios which affect some groups more than others. It is important to have those experiences be represented in our program. By inviting participants to work with us to develop new cases, we will ensure that we are addressing the needs of as wide a group as possible. All participants who work to develop new cases will be paid, as it is important to recognize the importance and value of their contribution to the program.

Our solution was developed in response to the well-meaning, but misguided mentorship we have often encountered. Our team has attended many “Women in STEM” events where the take home messages have been: “You should work harder than men, because that is way you will get noticed!”; “Learn about football and baseball, so you can join in office talk!”; “Always wear something appealing”; “If you are a senior leader and someone asks you to make coffee for them as they mistake you for an assistant, don’t ever complain!” and of course we all-too-often attended events where no one on the panel was actually working in any technical aspect, they just happened to work at a STEM company.

These well intended, but soul crushing “Women in STEM” events motivated the team to develop alternative narrative. Our program is designed to provide girls in STEM with the ability to know their value and know how to get fair credit. To identify biases and to navigate around them. To develop the skills and persistence needed to stay in STEM.

As we look forward along our potential career pathways, we want the path to be filled with an ever-increasing community of skilled and confident girls and women who are ready to effect change in middle school, high school, college, and then the workplace. To do this, we need to equip girls with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to recognize discrimination and inequity when we encounter it, and to make appropriate and well-informed decisions to navigate around the obstacles.

We are part of the current high school cohort, the very community we will be serving. We are engaging a diverse group of girls across our networks to inform, expand, and improve our case studies. The reason we currently focus on middle and high school girls is because that is our lived experience, and expertise. As we move on to college, we will develop new case studies for the program to be responsive to the needs of college students. Finally, as we transition to employment, we will adjust the program to provide support for women in the STEM workplace.

As we move ahead with our careers, we will continue to have the middle school and high school programs, but they will be developed and continually reviewed by girls who are then at that step in their career. This is vitally important in order to keep the material relevant and relatable. We will always employ age-appropriate girls as they will have meaningful input. This will ensure our content remains appropriate for the lived experiences of participants, and it also gives girls an early exposure to leadership positions. This benefits the young leaders and generates new role models for younger girls. The presence of near peer mentoring and sharing of experiences is a vital part of our community. 

We have developed a series of case studies, with comprehensive teaching guides and supporting material. The material has been reviewed by educators, as well as girls within the target group, and revised in response to their suggestions.

We have also developed some fun interactive computer games, which reinforce the concepts in the lesson plans.

The five cases which form the backbone of our prototype cover benevolent sexism, impostor syndrome, stereotype threat, meritocratic inequality, and allies. Each case has a relatable and engaging story, is supported videos, games, and documents. There is a comprehensive teaching plan which can be used by a mentor or teacher to deliver the case. There are notes and definitions which cover concepts and definitions introduced in the scenario. There are series of suggested questions to get everyone involved and make sure that everyone understands the facts presented in the story. There are also a series exercises and questions for participants to engage with the material through role play and discussions. Comments are provided to help facilitators work through possible outcomes, to make sure all thoughts are captured an everyone feels included.

We also have a pre- and post- session surveys, which will help to determine whether the participants gained knowledge, insights, and other benefits (listed on the learning objectives) from participating in the case study.

This opportunity offers several specific benefits for us.

First, we would greatly benefit from a rigorous external assessment of our planned approach, business model, SWOT, essentially a comprehensive strategic review. Even though we have a novel approach, we would like to learn from the successes and failures of existing approaches, which will enable us to maximize the impact of our program.

The networking opportunities will enable us to gain additional peer review of our program materials for content, proposed activities, and delivery methods. Feedback from people who are working and have had success in this space would be invaluable.

The network will also expand our opportunity to expand the communities we can deliver this program to. 

Before we deploy our program, we would like to establish a rigorous process for analyzing outcomes. If we have the backing of the Gender Equity in STEM Challenge, we will be able to collaborate with academics working in this area who will be able to measure the impact of our program, and ensure we are reaching our goals using rigorous methodology. Being able to demonstrate that our program has clear results is vitally important for our planned future growth.   

Our team will benefit greatly from the education, mentoring, and resources offered by this challenge, as we build and expand this program.  

Our Team Lead is Henrietta Rasmusson, a high school freshman who wants to create a STEM environment where everyone is valued, respected, and encouraged. She wants to work as an engineer where more than 16% of the engineering workforce are women, and where women are happy to in their STEM jobs, and they progress to leadership roles. There is no-one who is more invested in making this program a success: Henrietta is building the world she wants to live in, and strengthening the path for all girls in STEM.

The first case studies are largely based on her middle and high school experiences, and were developed as she was critically analyzing situations which she thought might have had better outcomes if she was fully prepared for them. The obstacles to a girl in STEM often reappear in similar form, so taking the time to work through situations had a significant impact on her confidence and ability to navigate around future obstacles.

Fortunately, Henrietta has not been alone as she wanders along her career path. She has had incredible support from the Million Girls Moonshot, as she was selected as part of their inaugural Flight Crew. The members of the flight crew were drawn from across the country, with diverse backgrounds, but the challenges they faced being girls in STEM were similar. Henrietta is now a mentor n the program, and the challenges girls encounter remain similar.

Henrietta has also been advisor to after-school programs in Massachusetts, with a particular focus on helping them identify and develop STEM projects which are relevant to current middle and high schoolers. Through this process, she has learned the value of peer review, and incorporating members of the target community in the planning process.

Henrietta has all the skills required to successfully lead this program and to achieve all the planned milestones. She is part of the community which is the target of this program, and as she progresses along her career path, she will be able to expand the program to cover the communities of college students, and then women working in STEM. 

Programs to encourage girls to explore careers in STEM have been operating for several decades, but the percentage of women in engineering jobs remains stubbornly low at only 16%.

Our solution is innovative in several ways.

Our focus is not to deliver any primary STEM education; we offer complementary training, to acquire the survival skills to be able to thrive in a largely male STEM environment. There are many wonderful programs which deliver STEM content, but women working in STEM fields are nearly twice as likely to change career as women in other occupations (MetLife, 2022), and the number of women in leadership positions was down by 14% in 2022 (MetLife). This indicates that girls and women, even if they have a strong interest in STEM, may not have the survival skill set to stay in STEM. Our solution is to focus on the skills, knowledge, and confidence to enable women to forge a lasting career in STEM.

Our second innovation is the use of relatable case studies. These give girls the opportunities to act our various scenarios, and to examine the case from all points of view. This will strengthen their analytical abilities, decision making skills, and will make them a better ally to others. The case study approach will give girls an insight into the relationship between their actions and outcomes, and how “solutions” can be different for other people.

 Finally, we are innovative because this is a program developed by high school students for high school students. Today, high school students are facing unique circumstances. They are younger than the iphone, and their relationship with technology is different from other generations. They spent a year, or more, of their school career at home, as a pandemic engulfed the world, followed by a year of not touching anyone or anything in school. Their experiences are distinct, and connecting with high school students requires content developed by high school students.

Impact goals for the first year:

-Peer review of all materials

-Establish research program to track outcomes

-Apply for funding to perform research

-Establish network of test sites to test the material

-Establish online version of program to be delivered over discord

-Establish Board of Directors/Advisors

 Impact goals for the next five years:

            -Determine whether the program has a measurable effect on the knowledge of participants

-Determine whether the program has a measurable effect on the ability of girls to cope with roadblocks they encounter in STEM related activities.

- Determine whether participants in the program stay in STEM

- Develop content for the college version of the program, created and informed by college students. 

Our program has the overarching goal of increasing the number of girls who stay in STEM, who study STEM at college, who work in a STEM field, and who take a leadership position at a STEM company.

Some of these goals are long term, and will not be realized for several decades, so we will initially focus on short term proxies.

The teaching materials which accompany our case studies includes a pre and post survey. We anticipate that the knowledge of participants on key terms and definitions will improve between the pre and post survey. We also anticipate that the participants will also have increased confidence on the decision-making ability, and their ability to critically analyze situations. The pre and post survey will enable us to capture these short-term metrics.

In the longer term, we will follow participants who are part of our discord community, where they will continue to engage with material. We will periodically capture attitudes toward STEM, careers, and other data with longitudinal surveys. We will track how many girls ultimately choose to major in a STEM field, and then enter, and stay in, the STEM workforce.   

Our goal is to help girls to develop the skillset required to stay in STEM and have a successful career.

Our inputs are the case studies we deliver, and the discord community.

The output of our program is that we will equip middle and high school girls with the knowledge to articulate the problems they are facing, training in decision analysis to determine what to do, and confidence to engage with their solutions.

These inputs and outputs relate to our long-term goals of increasing the number of women working in STEM, and improving their ability to thrive, in several ways:  

• The role playing and group discussions in our program will have the result that when a girl encounters an obstacle instead of considering abandoning her STEM goals, she will formulate a solution to surmount the obstacle. This increases the likelihood she will stay in STEM, and even thrive in STEM.
• Once a participant has been on our course, it will increase the likelihood that she will be a strong ally, and help other girls facing obstacles. This will also achieve our goal, as the girl who was helped will be more likely to stay in STEM. This benefits both the participant and the girl she helped, as they will both benefit from having a larger STEM community of good allies with a supportive network.  
• Participants who have completed the raining will confidently progress through the challenges of high school STEM and will become near peer role models to other girls. Participants will model how to navigate around roadblocks and inspire others to seek solutions. Once again, the participant will be creating the change in the community, by increasing her own, and others’ likelihood that they will stay and thrive in STEM.

We will measure the success of our program by pre- and post- surveys, as well as longitudinal surveys. The survey will have structured questions, as well as space for open ended narrative replies.     

Our solution takes advantage of many existing technologies. Our entire program is downloaded online, once an access code is given, for ease of distribution.

In addition to the course content downloaded for school and after-school programs, we will deliver the material as part of an online workshop. We use discord, as this has all the capabilities we need for breakout rooms, sharing online materials, and enables very interactive sessions.

Our long term support community is on discord, as this is the preferred interaction method for high school students. Discord can facilitate grouping by affinities, and other common links.

Our supplementary material which supports our case studies as well as other resources will be accessed via our website and YouTube. 

This solution team is led by Henrietta Rasmusson, who works part time on this solution.

She has leveraged her networks, and received significant contributions from family and friends, including educators, researchers, Women in STEM, Men in STEM, and entrepreneurs.

Every time I saw a girl hesitate at the door, then turn away from the STEM activity, I worked on this solution. Every time I saw a mentor behaving in a benevolently sexist way, I worked on this solution. I have always kept a log of situations I wished I could fix.

I researched several models of content delivery, and finally settled on case studies with role playing as being the most effective. In the past year, I reviewed my notebooks to actively develop the cases, teaching notes, and other resources which form the backbone of this program. 

Please note that throughout this application, consistent with the definitions given by the STEM Challenge, we have used the word “girl” to refer to female identifying people.

The materials we have developed are based on real life experiences of girls in STEM. As we build our portfolio of cases, we will specifically draw on the experiences of girls from a wide range of backgrounds. We will work with the girls to develop their story for the case so that it is a true reflection of their experience and achieves their learning objectives. All girls will be paid for working on cases, which is one way we will signify the respect we have for their lived experience and their contribution to the program. We will work with girls who seek leadership opportunities in the program and ensure that we can deliver a program which is meaningful to all girls by having representation in leadership. All cases studies and resources will be thoroughly reviewed by all stakeholders for inclusivity, equity, and fairness.

If girls do not have the opportunity to participate in local mentor-led events, they will have access to our workshops on discord. This will maximize access to our program. Our discord rules and policies will be clearly stated, and all prospective participants will have to complete training on diversity, equity and inclusivity before they join the community, or participate in any of our workshops. Anyone who violates our policy on diversity, equity, and inclusivity will be offered additional training, and will be removed from the server. 

We are a non-profit business.

Our business model follows a planned evolution strategy which will mirror the growth and development of the content. Our offering is the comprehensive training program and materials, used independently by the customer, or delivered as workshops by our team.  

Our initial priority is the involvement and development of skills in middle and high school girls. We will reach them at school, in after-school programs, and on their own time through our web-based resources. The funds to validate and optimize our content will come from grants and sponsorships. We plan to apply to the NIH and NSF, as well as philanthropic and educational organizations. Once our prototype is validated, we will work with school administrators to launch this system in schools and after-school programs. We have already established links with schools and providers, and we will deliver vetted classroom-ready packages for schools and after-school programs. At this point our revenue will have two distinct payment models: schools and after-school programs will be fee based, and materials released directly to girls will be free. To maximize the reach and inclusivity of this program, we will work with sponsoring organizations such as the After-school Alliance, Girl Scouts, Challenger Centers and NCWIT. Establishing these external partnerships will play an important role as we scale operations.

Over the next five years, we will expand our content to include material developed by, and aimed at, college students. Once we have validated our college level content, we will have access to new markets: Colleges. Our business model for the college resources is to offer colleges not only the option to use our comprehensive ready to use package which details all the resources and activities, teaching plans, and assessment exercise, but to offer this as a complete workshop where we provide the mentors and facilitators too. We anticipate that this preparation will be particularly valuable to college recruitment officers to demonstrate the commitment of the college to women in STEM, and to placement officers as part of their programs to prepare students for employment. The revenue steam will be direct payment from colleges. The value to the college of hosting our workshops is that this will be attractive to enrolling, and keeping, more women in their STEM programs and preparing their alumni in for STEM careers.

The final step in the evolution of our business model is the development of content aimed at women in the STEM workforce. We will test and validate this content, then offer fully comprehensive, fully staffed content to businesses. In our customer discovery with STEM companies, we discovered that technical employee retention is a major problem. In particular, they are strongly motivated to improve their retention rates for women, but they want to engage someone outside the company to deliver a comprehensive, validated, program. They are willing to invest heavily in this kind of program because they easily offset the financial and business costs of hiring and training new employees. 

We are operating on Friends and Family funding. Now that we have developed sufficient prototype content, we are seeking funding for preliminary research studies to validate that our content has the anticipated impact on the audience we are serving. In addition to this application, we are seeking funding for this phase from research grants (NSF, NIH) as well as philanthropic and educational organizations for seed funds to establish Phase I of our program.

Our product is currently a prototype program, with content covering a core set of instructional materials and resources. From this initial core, we will develop additional real-life situations and case studies, sourced from girls and users, which addresses real-life and relatable situations. In this way, we will build a unique set of validated programming material. This provides a path for user growth, with real human involvement, and in a scalable fashion. Following growth of content, our Phase II operating strategy as a non-profit corporation is to generate a sustained source of revenue and growth as a hybrid of a largely user supported community consisting of educational institutions and subsidized by charitable funding, supporting organizations and research grants. Armed with our validated content, in Phase II we will monetize this system into a self-supporting organization through three mechanisms:

-We will provide customers with the case studies and all other materials required to implement training in their school or after school setting.

-We will organize of paid training seminars both on-line and in person for educational institutions.

-We will provide complete delivery of programs to our customers, including facilitators and mentors to lead the program.

In phase III, we will extend our market segment to include HR departments of commercial companies employing STEM workers.  This has the potential to provide the most sustained revenue, and may need to be spun off as a for profit company that provides revenue to support the non-profit efforts of our company.  By spinning off a for profit provider of corporate services, larger amounts of capital investment will be accessible, which will allow more rapid and sustainable growth of our core mission.

We are currently supported by friends and family. We have had exceptionally positive responses to our solutions.  Our CEO, Henrietta Rasmusson, has already received external funding as a consultant on STEM education program for girls based in Massachusetts ($500) and she is a named participant on a pending educational STEM grant proposal to the NSF. She has also been a paid participant and mentor for the Million Girls Moonshot program ($1,000). Henrietta has used the funds to advance this program into the protype stage, and will build on these connections and grant-funded experiences to seek further funding.