Outreach

Girls STEAM Ahead

Science • Technology • Engineering • Arts • Mathematics
Creating STEAM opportunities for young women. 

Girls STEAM Ahead is an outreach program of Girls Inc. of Jefferson County, Indiana, bringing our work to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold to Madison Consolidated Junior High School students.

The program started at MJHS in 2014 with assistant program director Connie Leap. It has since taken many forms and adapted to meet the needs of the students and the school in the intervening years. It is most often offered as a two-week after school program in fall semester.

The aim of the program is to expose young women in grades 5 to 8 to a variety of STEAM opportunities, in a girls-only environment and developing the entire Girls Inc. Experience.

In December 2019, Girls Inc. offered two different Girls STEAM Ahead programs. The first was a two-week after school program with more than 15 girls enrolled, that included a week of planning, designing and building a sturdy gingerbread house, and a week of exciting kitchen science experiments. The second program was a workshop partnership with Ivy Tech Community College that was open to girls in 8th grade to develop their interest in coding and introduce them to the resources that are already available to them in this community.

According to the National Science Foundation, women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce, with the greatest disparities occurring in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences. (NSF, Science & Engineering Indicators, 2018).

Girls STEAM Ahead hopes to do its small part to counteract this disparity by encouraging and inspiring girls to remain engaged in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Playground Project

Girls, Inc. of Jefferson County, IN
The Playground Project is an outreach program of Girls Inc. of Jefferson County, IN, bringing our work to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold to the elementary schools in our surrounding area.

Program Director Sabrina Cline initially started the Playground Project in the 2018-19 school year at Lydia Middleton Elementary School. She met weekly with girls in the fourth grade during their recess time for 30 minutes in a 6-week program. The initial group completed the Work It Out
program. That first session included 6 girls. This year the program at Lydia Middleton has nearly doubled, to include 11 girls.

Earlier this year we expanded to the remaining three elementary schools in the Madison Consolidated School System, Anderson, Rykers’ Ridge and Deputy. Most recently, Southwestern Elementary School signed on to allow us to present the Playground Project.

The program will focus on working with third-grade and fourth-grade girls, meeting for 30 minutes, once a week, for 6 to 8 weeks. We hope to be able to complete the program twice a semester, using our Work It Out and Redefining Beauty curricula, and expanding additional programming on the topics of media literacy and manners.
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