Anjali Bajaj, a Bay Area eighth-grader, hopes to be a professional writer someday and already has her own blog. So when her mother suggested three years ago that she attend a one-day science conference for girls at a local community college, she was less than enthusiastic.  ”I was not excited,” Bajaj said. “I was not into science. But after going, I thought maybe I should try more science because I had so much fun.”

So much fun that Bajaj has now attended the annual math and science conference three times.

Mission accomplished. That’s just the response the coordinators of the conference — Expanding Your Horizons Network, an Oakland-based nonprofit — hoped to inspire. Established in 1976, the organization has worked to encourage young women to pursue careers in what are known as STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  For their efforts, the group was honored recently in Washington, D.C., with a public service award by the governing board of the National Science Foundation, the federal agency charged by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science.”

Steven Beering, chairman of the National Science Board, said the award, given May 4, was in recognition of the Oakland network’s long-standing commitment to the early development of interest in mathematics and science among young girls.

The math and science conferences are the main tool Expanding Your Horizons uses to reach out to learn about what they do in a typical day.

Expanding Your Horizons board President Rachel Sheinbein studied chemical engineering as an undergraduate and received her MBA as well as a master’s in civil and environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sheinbein said she was lucky that her parents encouraged her interest in math and sciences when she was young and took her to participate in enrichment programs.

Many girls miss out on such encouragement. A study released earlier this year by the AAUW, formerly known as the American Association of University Women, called “Why So Few?” noted that while the number of women in STEM fields is increasing, they are still outnumbered by men.

With math scores for girls rapidly increasing, the report puts much of the blame for the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering on such external factors as negative stereotypes about girls’ abilities in math. Who can forget the Barbie doll released in 1992 that was programmed to say “math class is tough”?

Since its inception, more than 800,000 girls have attended a conference, Sheinbein said, adding that the organization is not content to rest on its laurels.

“We’d like to be in every state,” she said.

Science and technology have historically been dominated by men—and still are. Only a small percentage of women choosing careers in these fields, but one organization is trying to change that. Expanding Your Horizons, based in the U.S., is dedicated to getting girls interested in careers in math, technologies and sciences. The organization was in Geneva this weekend for its first conference in Europe.

Listen to  the WRS radio report here: http://worldradio.ch/wrs/news/switzerland/science-investing-in-future-of-girl-powerand-creat.shtml?16760

When I tell people that I am interested in majoring in politics or sociology in college, I am often met with a reproachful stare.

This phenomenon is part of a larger trend in our society. Intelligent, high-achieving young women are pressured by our society into entering math and science fields. Just as the feminists wanted women to have options beyond staying at home with children, today, smart young women should not be a conveyer belt destined for only math and science.We are attempting to overcompensate for the previous lack of women in these fields. At Liberty High School, girls can attend the Expanding Your Horizons conference or join Physettes. Both of these encourage women’s interest in math and science, with the goal of more women entering these fields. There are no special programs at Liberty to encourage students, let alone women, to enter politics.

The problem is that women are traditionally severely underrepresented in politics and business. The Council of State Governments reports that since the founding of the United States, only 28 women have served as governors. Twenty-nine states have never elected a woman as governor. The current U.S. Senate is home to only 17 women. Similarly, of CNN’s 2009 Fortune 500 Companies, only 15 are led by women. Fifteen out of 500 equals an abysmal 3 percent.

Read complete article here: http://www.issaquahpress.com/2009/11/17/math-science-aren%E2%80%99t-the-only-options-for-smart-young-women/

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Only 15 percent of women in Switzerland are active in information technology, and only five percent of Swiss engineers are women. This brainpower deficit is addressed in Geneva for the first time by a leading US organization in the field, in a day of workshops in English and French for girls aged 11-15 and their parents. The workshops will be held at the International School of Geneva 14 November.

Expanding your horizons (EYH) chose Geneva, Switzerland to organize its first series of workshops in Europe. It regularly runs about 90 conferences a year in Asia and the USA to introduce girls to the sciences.

Participating girls choose workshops led by women who are recognized in their fields, says Jennifer Kealy, EYH Geneva conference chairwoman. The same subjects in school may be dry, but the workshops try to give young women a taste for the uses to which science and mathematics can be put in an environment that is dynamic and fun.

Read complete article here: http://genevalunch.com/blog/2009/11/12/expanding-girls-horizons-making-science-sexy/

In 1959, a small group of about 20 high school girls met with women researchers at UW-Madison to learn about science careers.

Then, it was rare to see a woman in a lab coat on college campuses. Anna Maria Williams, who helped organize that first conference, said she had a hard time finding enough mentors for the girls.

“We didn’t have very many women in whose labs they could go,” recalled Williams, an emeritus biology professor at UW-Parkside. “We put them in labs run by men who then, if possible, got them working with women lab students and post-docs.”

Fifty years later, the program is still going strong. Now called Expanding Your Horizons, it has grown and evolved over the years. The conference will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Saturday at UW-Madison.

One major change is that it’s no longer such a challenge to find women scientists to serve as role models. On Saturday, more than 100 professional women will demonstrate science, give lab tours, and talk to about 350 girls from across south-central Wisconsin.

Read complete article here: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/article_5ad0281a-ca7e-11de-8fe5-001cc4c002e0.html

The University of Wisconsin will host the annual Expanding Your Horizons conference geared toward sparking young women’s interests within science fields in an effort to decrease the gap between women and men within these fields Saturday.

The annual conference invites young women from middle schools throughout south central Wisconsin to participate in a daylong conference involving career workshops and hands-on competitions. Started in 1959, this year marks EYH’s 50th anniversary at UW and will include a special guest speaker, Amy Vedder, a senior vice president for the Wilderness Society in Washington, DC, who received her Ph.D. at UW.

Throughout the day, the focus of the conference will be on engaging and educating young women about the importance of careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as successful careers.

Read complete article here: http://badgerherald.com/news/2009/11/06/expanding_your_horiz.php