By Dr Nirmani Wijenayake and Dr Gabriella Martyn

The surprised reaction of ‘Wow, you’re a doctor?!’ was a common response we received from high school girls at the Women in Science Symposium, held earlier last month at the Australian National Maritime Museum for International Women’s Day. While as early career researchers, we might be familiar with being surrounded by research and teaching academics, to these young school girls in years 9 to 12, it was surprising and exciting for them to meet other young females who already have a PhD and ‘Dr’ title. Inspiring and encouraging the high school girls to look beyond the lab coats and see the possibilities for a career in STEM was what this event was all about!

We had two main activities planned for the event. The first one was designed to teach the students about the importance of vaccination and how infections could spread across the populations quickly. Each student was given a tube that is meant to represent a sample from their body. They add a chemical indicator into the tube to test if their body is ‘infected’ with measles by observing a colour change. They either received a ‘cleared’ or ‘quarantine’ sticker according to their test results, which they had to wear in plain sight, so that others knew if there was the possibility of contracting measles from them if they have not been vaccinated. The stickers we issued were a big hit! Some of the students who were not ‘infected’ wanted to be so they could also get a ‘quarantine’ sticker and join their friends. We picked measles as our infectious disease as it has been in the news lately due to resurgence of the disease in the United States due to the anti-vaccination movement. It was interesting to talk to the students about the anti-vaxxer movement because it was clear to us that only half of the students knew or heard of the movement and what it meant for public health. We think it is important to raise awareness about serious issues such as these due to the direct impact it may have on their lives.

The second activity we ran involved showing the school girls how we can make bacteria glow a fluorescent green! Since its discovery in a deep-sea jellyfish, the green fluorescent protein has been a vital research tool for laboratories all over the world, to visualise the expression and movement of proteins within a cellular system or organism. For this demonstration, we showed the girls what normal bacteria look like under a UV light and how they glow green when we insert the green fluorescent gene from the deep-sea jellyfish into the bacteria. The girls looked amazed when they saw the bacteria glow green! Some thought it was really cool, others thought it was freaky and one girl excitedly took a photo of the demonstration for her assignment on genetically modified organisms!

For us, one of the best parts of the day was talking to some of the students about our journey and how we got to where we are today. We managed to put their minds at ease about figuring out what they wanted to do, as a lot of them think they need to make those decisions right now. A lot of them were surprised that we were already Doctors because to them we looked too young to have achieved that. We also shared how our journey wasn’t a clear linear path and how that was okay because you will often figure out what interests and excites you in the field of science along the way.

We had an enjoyable day talking to these students and running the activities. In general, the students at that age didn’t seem to go out of their way to read about science news or discoveries unless they have a passion for the area already or have some influence through their family. Hopefully we managed to inspire some of these students to just be cognisant of what’s out there in the world of science – not necessarily as a career, but out of interest on how amazing it is. Even just starting a conversation about what they did at events like these with their parents at home could be a significant first step towards arousing their curiosity and sharing knowledge. It could not only benefit the students but those around them as well.

Follow Gabriella on Twitter

By Kristina Fidanovski

“It works!” The girl’s disgruntled face suddenly clears and lights up the same way her circuit just has. I don’t get to admire her enthusiasm for long though–I’m drawn away to make sure the group aerial testing their light-up helicopter creations don’t wind up with concussions to take home as well. I’m in a small rural town in New South Wales running science workshops for APSIRE’s holiday program. ASPIRE aims to empower disadvantaged kids and make university education a real and attainable option for them. Part of that mission is exposing kids to what a university education means and the broad range of fields that they could pursue. Across the school there are workshops going on in drama, programming, sport, art, and engineering for girls and boys across Years 4 to 8. We’re building simple paper helicopters with finicky light up circuits for the science workshop. Neither Ngozi, my co-pilot, nor I know particularly much about circuits. It’s been a while since my undergraduate in Physics and these days I can be more reliably found pouring something toxic into something flammable and hoping a polymer comes out the other end. Ngozi’s optometry work in assessing habitual impacts on the ocular surface of children isn’t helping her much either. We’re doing admirably well, though; I think. Most people seem impressed with my improvised diagnostic tools as we try and get the little lights to turn on. A more challenging prospect than you might expect, but in my defence the wires are conductive tape that little fingers have mangled, not the standard insulated fair of science kits everywhere. Even the most irreverent and stubbornly cool preteens among the group–who will remain nameless–can’t help being pleased when their circuits work.

“Why does the plus side of the battery have to be connected to the plus side of the light?” The girl asking is the loudest among a group of girls determined to convince anyone listening that they have no interest at all in anything that could be mistaken for school. I’m onto them though; all their circuits work. Also, they have good questions.

I freeze and cast my mind back to sitting in a lecture 5 years ago while a stereotypically old, white gentleman explained the principles of diodes to a hall full of young men. I was sitting two seats away from one of a handful of young women in our 60+ cohort. We hadn’t spoken before and I was planning ways to start a conversation that wasn’t just: “We should be friends because we’re the only two girls currently in this room.”

Fortunately, I remember enough of the lecture to explain it to the satisfaction of a 12 year old (which is actually harder than if I could have just regurgitated the technical details to a colleague familiar with the function of an electron). It does remind me though, why I’m out in regional Australia in the first place. Every lecturer I had at university, in both Chemistry and Physics, was old, white and male (except for the notable exception of our third-year lecturer on general relativity who was a breath of feminine-fresh air). In fact, even my high school teachers adhered to the stereotypes. Despite the reassurances of my family that I could, and indeed should, go into science, and the famous examples of female scientists they doggedly told me about, my face-to-face experiences with science had never been with someone who looked like me. Neither as a child, nor as an adult. I won’t pretend that I’m hoping a few hours spent in the company of two young PhD candidates waxing lyrical about research and science will be enough to turn that same stereotype around in the minds of the young girls and boys we encountered. I am hoping that it will spark something for them though. Our visit alone won’t be enough. But maybe when they log on to Facebook tonight they’ll see a lady scientist doing a demonstration video. Or they’ll catch the tail end of an interview with a lady scientist on the news. And maybe next year when ASPIRE comes past again with another bright-eyed PhD student with no idea how to explain diodes to a 12 year old, that’ll be enough to get them to think: “I can do it too.”

Learn more about ASPIRE at their website. We visited two schools–in Gilgandra and the even tinier town of Coolah–in the week we spent putting on workshops and science stalls, but ASPIRE visits schools across the region and they do incredible work.

Follow Kristina on Twitter

Follow Ngozi on Twitter