A week-long Project Scientist program teaches girls achieving a career in STEM fields is possible for any girl.
The Project Scientist STEM program partnered with Trane Technologies plc (NYSE: TT) to offer girls five days full of science, technology, engineering and math activities. The program is taking place Aug. 8-12 at Trane’s executive headquarters office at 800 Beaty St. in Davidson. Girls ages 7 to 12 from Raise A Child of the Carolinas’ nonprofit organization, a partner of Project Scientist, received hands-on experience with Trane employees.
The program was meant to inspire young girls to pursue a career in STEM fields — when nearly half of women fill U.S. jobs, yet less than 25% of women hold a STEM job, according to Project Scientist. The Charlotte-based nonprofit organization, which boosts girls’ confidence through virtual, in-person, and hybrid summer and after-school programs, is striving to end that national gender gap.
Sandy Marshall, CEO and founder of Project Scientist, initiated the nonprofit about 12 years ago, after she discovered a need to foster her daughter’s interest in science.
“I was also running the NASCAR Foundation at the time and investing in a lot of STEM programs and reading the research of why, at a variety of ages, do girls and women drop out of those STEM pursuits,” she said. “Through that research I found that as young as 4, 5 and 6, boys and girls decide that math and science are for boys. My daughter was 4 and I didn't want her to have that mindset or her friends.”
Marshall said she hired two teachers from her daughter's school to run Project Scientist. By the third summer the program was running, it became a nonprofit serving girls nationally.
About 35 girls per day this week became young scientists. They were able to redesign and reengineer the way food is produced, used, thrown away and turned into reusable energy for a more sustainable future. Young STEM learners also shadowed Trane employees in Life Science Solutions. They were shown ultra-low temperature freezer technology that’s used to store vaccines and human donor tissue for medical purposes.
Throughout the week, the girls visited with Trane employees and were introduced to STEM careers and necessary skills to succeed. The event will conclude tomorrow with a Science Fair celebration, where the girls are given a spotlight to show off everything they learned.
“We want to broaden their perspective of who the scientist is and what a scientist does,” Marshall said. “Then we want them to start to see themselves in these careers and understand the steps it's going to take to get them there.”
Marshall said Project Scientist aims to sustain young girl’s interest in STEM by keeping them as program participants beyond the weeklong event. The nonprofit also has a virtual summer STEM lab for girls to perform five experiments a week from home.
Trane Technologies is a longtime partner of Project Scientist. Earlier this year, Trane made a $1 million grant to the Project Scientist STEM program to support science, technology, engineering and math activities for young girls. The collaborative effort will help Project Scientist expand into Mexico this fall, Marshall said. The nonprofit’s programs are taught in English and Spanish.
“As a country and as a world, we need as many women and diversity of thought in these positions because there's a lot of global challenges that we need diversity of thought to be solved,” she said. “For us, it's trying to get as many girls to consider these careers because it will benefit them and benefit us as well.”
