Mission
Girls are underrepresented in STEM classes and careers. Our goal is to create an encouraging environment for girls to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. In our case we decided to have our senior high girls create a one hour program once a month to engage our junior high age girls.

Statistics
My mother told me that when she was in college that in her upper level math classes, girls made up about 10 percent of the class. Male engineers filled almost all the seats. She graduated in 1993 with a Mathematics degree. Twenty years later, how are women fairing?
Women are not lagging in all STEM areas: Women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce, although to a lesser degree than in the past, with the greatest disparities occurring in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences (NSF, Science & Engineering Indicators, 2014; NSF, Women, Minorities, and People with Disabilities, 2013).

Female scientists and engineers are concentrated in different occupations than are men, with relatively high shares of women in the social sciences (58%) and biological and medical sciences (48%) and relatively low shares in engineering (13%) and computer and mathematical sciences (25%) (NSF, Science & Engineering Indicators, 2014).
Women make up 47% of the total U.S. workforce, but are much less represented in particular science and engineering occupations (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Women in the Labor Force: A Databook, 2013). For example:
44.2% of chemists and material scientists are women;
25.7% of environmental scientists and geoscientists are women;
17.7% of chemical engineers are women;
13.7% of civil engineers are women;
8.8% of electrical and electronics engineers are women;
18.8% of industrial engineers are women; and
4.5% of mechanical engineers are women.

Benefits
In our opinion our science education in elementary school was very piece-meal with little consistency between teachers’ variable interest level. Elementary school focused on literacy and math. Most of the math was procedural. By junior high work became very book bound with loads of information to memorize. Occasionally math or science is presented as fun or interesting. Junior high students are beginning to make decisions about high school classes. They are beginning to think about their future careers. If we, as high school students, can present science, technology, engineering and math as fun and interesting and of value in women’s future maybe we can influence the class choices junior high girls make in the 9th-12th grade. We are surrounded by adults who are encouraging us to consider STEM classes and careers, but we strongly believe that as high school students we can be positive role models for younger women and possibly more effective in convincing them to take STEM classes so that their future opportunities are not limited. A valuable side effect of this organization is that the GEMS will be creating a peer support system for the high school girls as well.