When Adele Falco, founder of Curious-on-Hudson, which hosts workshops and classes in STEAM topics designed to inspire children, realized that the majority of kids attending their programs were boys – she knew it was a status quo she wanted to change.

Falco shared with the audience gathered at her SXSWedu panel this morning that she would see parents asking their second and third grade daughters if they wanted to go to the workshops.  The girls would often say no and add that they didn’t want to go because they weren’t good at math and science.

“What can we do to disrupt the process by which girls are exempting themselves,” from these activities, Falco asked the audience.

Her plan was to work with mechanical engineer Jackie Bastardi to build workshops targeted at girls and young women which they called, You Go (Far), Girl.  The workshops focus on engineering skills and seek to not only give girls information about STEAM but to also create a relatable, human, humor-filled environment that would hopefully build confidence and combat many of the negative limitations girls place on themselves.

STEAM, referring to all fields related to science, technology, engineering, applied arts and math (also sometimes called just STEM) has historically been a male-dominated area both of study and employment.  However, in recent years the number of women and girls pursuing these fields has dwindled even further.  According to Girls Who Code, another program targeting young women, this time with regards to coding and computer science,  in 1987 women made up 37% of graduates in computer science programs.  These days women in such programs make up only 12% of graduates.

Falco told the audience  that it was the engagement she saw between Bastardi and the students which gave her the idea for the workshops’ focus.  She said the point of STEAM classes is so often only to advance a skillset.  When teaching engineering, it’s often overlooked how much fun it can be, she added.

Bastardi, who leads the workshops, said that’s one of the things she most hopes to impress upon the girls attending.  As a young woman, when asking a teacher what it would be like to study to be an engineer she said she received only the answer,

“It will be hard.”

Bastardi said that while she never sugarcoats the academic difficulty of engineering, she wishes someone had told her how much fun she would have in her studies.  Building solar ovens to cook bagel bites, or trebuchets to launch pumpkins – these are the fun and creative projects girls need to hear about, she added.

Her other goals for the groups include helping them be less intimidated by women in STEAM fields.

“I start off every class awkwardly talking about myself,” she said, laughing.

“[When I say] I have a dog.  I like to ride my bike,” that’s when the girls realize that we have things in common and start to relax, she explained.

At the panel’s conclusion, Bastardi and Falco shared a short video of one of the workshops in which girls learned about engineering and then worked in teams to build structures from marshmallows and pieces of spaghetti.

The girls shared some of their thoughts on what they’d learned from the workshop, or their feelings about STEAM fields.

They described engineers as, “[someone who can] change the world” and someone “who keeps going even in the hardest situations.”

Crystalizing, perhaps, the entire need for programs like Curious-on-Hudson’s, one girl added,

“Girls have to be determined and work hard to do what they want.”

She said it with a smile, seeming completely determined herself.