A program for school girls is aiming to introduce them to the world of STEM and turn them into inventors and entrepreneurs.
The idea for Girls Invent came about a few years ago when Dr Mark Glazebrook’s teenage daughter asked why most inventors were men.
Being an inventor and product developer himself, he said he was taken aback by the question.
“I wasn’t able to give her some good examples of women to say, ‘Well, it’s not just men,’ so it floored me a bit,” Glazebrook said.
“I thought either there are prominent women and we don’t know about them, which is a problem, or there aren’t enough, and that’s an even bigger problem.”
Glazebrook and his daughter set about researching female inventors and discovered a lot of well-known products were actually invented by women.
This experience prompted Glazebrook to develop trial modules that were tested in some schools about 18 months ago, specifically targeting students in grades 7 to 10.
“It seems to be quite a critical time, based on research and feedback from schools themselves. It’s a critical time when girls first decide if STEM is something they want to pursue,” he said.
The trials were so successful that a full program is now being run in about 150 schools across Australia.
The aim of the program has a two-pronged approach – to instil a strong sense of belief in girls who had ideas that had the potential to become a business or product, and equip young women with the skills to create their own jobs.
The core program comprises a series of six workshop modules that move from idea development and initial prototyping to developing and potentially commercialising their idea. Modules include market research, design, intellectual property, resourcing and commercialisation options, and developing pitching approaches. Each module runs for half a day, spaced about a month apart.
“It usually gets them to a place where they’ve got a minimal viable product that they can then continue to develop. That might require more research and maybe some mentoring or some other expertise … to progress their idea over the months and years ahead,” Glazebrook said.
One of the keys to the program is engaging girls in things they are passionate about, which helps them learn about STEM along the way.
For example, a girl may come to the program with an idea for a product or app. In order to develop that, they have to learn about technology, physics, chemistry and design, and as a result, they learn about STEM through the development phase.
Getting girls involved
Glazebrook said one of the reasons girls don’t seem as interested in STEM is due to a lack of connection being made between why they should study it and how it can help their everyday life.
“It’s often too abstract, so I think it’s partly how it’s communicated to them, and partly how they are able to join the dots so that they understand that it could help them get employment, but also be an enabler for them to create their own business and ventures,” he said.
“Scientific methods are very helpful in being able to work through that process. But I don’t think the case is being made strongly enough for young women to get that.”
Glazebrook said there is also still the perception that while it is okay for men to show their intelligence and a high level of competency, when women portray those same qualities, some men feel uncomfortable.
“Obviously, it’s their issue, but that can act as a barrier,” he said.
One way Glazebrook tries to mitigate this is through sharing with young students the “unwritten rules” about the way men work.
For example, how men and women respond to opportunities. On the one hand, men are more likely to say yes to an opportunity, even if they don’t know how to approach it, Glazebrook said, but women might be more reluctant and sometimes voice their lack of experience.
“The difficulty is that if they don’t take up opportunities, their managers or directors might start to view them as not interested and not engaged, when that’s not the case,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Glazebrook said he foresees a time when programs like Girls Invent aren’t needed anymore because STEM and related pathways are seen as a natural option for future study. He said this could be 10 years away, and possibly as soon as five years.
“One principle said we’re trying to create a social movement where girls across society start to believe that this is well within what they could do,” Glazebrook said.
[Image: Dr Mark Glazebrook with his daughter.]
[Nominations are now open for the Engineers Australia Women Engineering Award. Find out more.]