Some Wake County high school girls who love science decided to do something about it. Now they are inspiring little female scientists in Raleigh.
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"When I was in third grade I signed up for this robotics camp and I was very, very excited about it," said Preeti Bhanap, a senior at Enloe High School. "But when I walked in, I realized I was the only girl in the room."
Bhanap and her friends already see a gender gap in STEM classes.
"Even in our high schools we see a lot of the computer science classes are all boys," Priyanka Kallem said.
The girls created a club called "Women in Science." Every week, they come to Washington Elementary to do science experiments with a group of third-grade girls.
"We've made a balloon car, we've made zip lines, we made an elephant toothpaste lab," Kallem explained. "So we really tried to cover all aspects of STEM, we even did a computer science coding activity."
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They are trying to show these young girls how cool science, technology, engineering, and math can be.
"Photosynthesis is actually really appealing to me," said one third-grade participant. "It's really fun to learn about it."
When the club first met, they asked the third-graders who wanted to be a scientist. Not one girl raised her hand. Now that they see what science can do, though, the girls have a renewed interest.
"All of their hands just shot up and they said, 'I want to be a chemist! I want to be an engineer! I want to be a doctor!'" Bhanap shared. "That change is just awesome to see."
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