Shark Week Has a Gender Problem. These Women Scientists Are Trying to Fix That

As an estimated 35 million people tune in to watch Shark Week this summer, chances are they’ll catch two things: the ocean’s most fearsome Great White predators tearing up their prey, and the predominantly male conservationists who protect them.
Though some of the programming might take liberty with the science, Shark Week does nail one thing exactly right: it’s an unfortunately accurate depiction of gender disparities in science.
Currently, women represent half of the college-educated workforce but hold only 28% of the nation’s science and engineering careers, according to the National Science Board. Gills Club aims to raise that percent by supporting young girls to be the next generation of shark scientists. 
The Gills Club, an education initiative by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, is fighting against stigmas girls and women face in STEM fields. The initiative started after co-founders Cynthia Wigren and Marianne Long heard time and time again that “sharks are for boys.” 
Now they’re making sure people know that sharks — and the field of professional science that studies them — are for everyone.
“It got us really thinking about how these women who worked in the field with sharks can really be a very strong and needed role model for these young girls,” Long told Boston Magazine. “So we wanted to build that connection to them.”
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“These girls, if they’re watching Shark Week and they’re not seeing women scientists and then they’re being told at school that sharks are just for boys, they’re being discouraged from following their passion,” Wigren told PRI. “So for us connecting them to these women shark scientists doing amazing work was really important.”
The group consists of a cohort of more than 90 women researchers and conservationists. Each month, the organization hosts events across the country for younger girls to join. They’ll step inside the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, or visit the Newport Aquarium in landlocked Kentucky. Here, girls will gain exposure to sharks and career paths. Girls usually between 8 and 12 years old might learn about why 16% of all shark species are threatened with extinction or the important role sharks play in the ocean ecosystem. On top of that, the organization also hosts online events for girls to attend, and it created a Facebook Group for scientists to connect and network
To see the effect Gills Club has had on its participants, all you have to do is talk to Ella, a little girl the organization empowered to pursue a career in science. Because of their efforts, the 6-year-old now knows 12 scientific shark names — the first step on her journey toward becoming a marine biologist when she grows up. 
“I try to teach people how important sharks are to the ocean and the whole world,” she said
And it’s not just Ella, over 400 girls have attended in-person Gills Club events.  
The girls in the Gills Club aren’t just fighting for a future for sharks, they’re fighting for their own future. Here’s how you can be a part of it.
More: These Gorgeous Fish Are Invading Florida’s Coasts. One Solution? Eat Them

These Computer Science Programs Have Just What Women Want

The likes of Marie Curie and Jane Goodall may have set great examples for future female scientists, and it’s time that more women follow in their footsteps — especially when it comes to computer science.
For all the jobs available in the industry and programs to train workers for it, a mere 18 percent of computer science graduates in the United States are women. Can we balance out the gender gap amongst computer scientists? Some of the top institutions of higher learning have already started, according to The New York Times.
At Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, 40 percent of incoming freshmen are women, and almost a third of computer science graduates this year were women at the University of Washington. And that’s not all. Harvey Mudd College in California boasts that 40 percent of their computer science program enrollees are female and this year, more than half of their engineering school graduates were women — a first for the school.
As promising as these numbers are, these three schools represent only a fraction of the computer science programs in the country. The question remains – what’s their secret, and how can it spread to every school?
Unsurprisingly, there is no cure-all, but one general trend is helping out everywhere: With so many professional opportunities for computer science majors, the field in general is attracting more students — regardless of gender.
But what sets Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, and Harvey Mudd apart is that they are grabbing potential students when they’re younger by promoting computer science at an earlier age. By hosting summer camps and training high school teachers to teach computer science, girls are more likely to gain exposure to the discipline and develop a lifelong interest in it.
Another tactic used by these schools is revamping their marketing and support systems. Harvey Mudd, for example, has featured female students in their brochures to show that it’s normal for girls to study science. “We made it very clear that being a female scientist, that’s normal,” said Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd. Plus, the school now talks about computer science as a way to problem solve (as opposed to it simply being about technical coding), putting an emphasis on its practical applications.
At Carnegie Mellon, the requirement to have prior experience in order to enter the major was eliminated and an official student mentorship program was established. By removing barriers and easing the process of becoming a computer science major, more women are showing interest.
Good news is, this can be easily replicated elsewhere.
As Lenore Blum, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon told The New York Times, “I don’t think we’re doing anything that nobody else could do, but it has to be sustained and institutionalized.”
If other schools picked up some tips from this trend-setting trio, America could be well on its way to unlocking a whole new set of minds for computer science.
MORE: Can Google Crack the Code for More Female Computer Scientists?