PointsSouth: Articles 2007

Gabrielle Davis stood in front of an audience of her peers June 29, delivering a final report wrapping up her field research on microscopic marine organisms. She made it smoothly through her introduction and began describing her methods. But then she mentioned a technical device called a "stopcock," and the crowd was paralyzed with giggles.

That's the hazard of mixing oceanography with ninth-grade girls.

Gabrielle, 14, and her tittering audience were part of the University of South Florida's Oceanography Camp for Girls, a three-week day camp for girls entering high school. With a curriculum targeted at 13- to 14-year-olds, the camp tries to steer girls into the sciences before social pressures can force them out.

"We want to show them what it's like to be a scientist outside of textbooks and tests," said Theresa Greely, the program's director.

Greely and her staff know that, even today, most girls don't aspire to science careers. The numbers bear it out at every level. They blame it on society's lingering notions of women, and on the general idea that science has to be about boring math and equations. Mostly, Greely said, they just want their girls to grow up with an appreciation for science and conservation.

Morgan Meserve was urged to apply to the Oceanography Camp for Girls by Paul Aunspaugh, her science teacher at St. Petersburg Christian School. Coming in, Aunspaugh said, Morgan didn't always find science easy but had a lot of enthusiasm for it. Now, she wants to major in biology at Eckerd College or USF. And when she grows up, she wants to be a coral reef ecologist.

That's the effect the Greely, co-director Angela Lodge and their staff aim for with each camper. Everything they do is designed to keep teenagers interested. When it is time to learn about fossils, they first use a chocolate layer cake to simulate multiple layers of rock. Then they pick through a real sediment core from Tampa Bay.

"It's a lot more hands-on stuff," Morgan said. "I think that's the best part because everybody gets to do everything up front instead of just looking at their books."

About 15 mentors and counselors make up the camp staff, a mix of USF faculty, graduate students and former campers. Some, like 30-year-old graduate student and former high school science teacher Ken McNicol, work for college credit. Others just volunteer.

For the girls, the hardest part may be getting into the camp. Each year, between 50 and 150 people apply for the 30 spots. Greely and her staff interview each one, looking for a mix of students that need help in science and those that already excel at it. Mostly, they just look for a deep interest they can nurture.

None of the girls pay tuition.

The program began with an eight-year grant from the National Science Foundation. Greely used that window to pester local businesses for sponsorships and build an endowment worth over $1 million.

This year, the camp is funded through interest from the endowment and sponsorships from Progress Energy and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The camp also got a boost when the government bought a chunk of waterfront land for environmental purposes four years ago. The property, known as Clam Bayou, included an old house that OCG has converted into a home away from campus. They added a small computer lab, and the faculty brought their own laptops for the kids to use. Its location right on the water gives the girls a chance to literally get their feet wet in Tampa Bay ecology.

Hours before giving their final presentation, the campers sat in Clam Bayou, preparing their tri-fold posters and PowerPoint presentations.

Here, the line blurs between freshmen girl and scientist. One girl used puffy paint to checker her poster in purple, black and green, while her teammate studied a graph depicting the distribution of sand grain sizes at the local beach. Another group took a break from their preparations to sing along with "What's Love got to do With It?" on the radio. One girl remarked that a real plankton looks nothing like the character on SpongeBob SquarePants.

In the midst of the horseplay, McNicol overheard girls discussing formulas he didn't learn until grad school.

The challenge for Greely and the staff is keeping the girls interested all the way to college. The number of women in science is slowly rising, but it still isn't high. According to the National Science Foundation, only 42 percent of physical science degrees and 21 percent of engineering bachelor's degrees went to women in 2004. The numbers were even worse in graduate school, where only 26 percent of physical science degrees and 18 percent of engineering degrees went to women.

McNicol, who is working on his masters in secondary science education, said teaching the girls separately was vital to keeping them interested.

"It's the only way to get anything done," McNicol said. "They write songs, and they do stuff together and they're making friendships here. If there were boys around, it would completely break that up."

In at least some cases, the program is working. Bryce Rodgers, a junior in maritime studies at the University of West Florida, said her camp experience kept her interested through the crush of formulas in high school math and science classes.

She came back as a counselor the next year, and returned at the end of the 2007 camp to recruit girls to plant new vegetation in Tampa Bay.

"The camp is a really good precursor to high school," Rodgers said. "You get the chemistry class, but it's great to have something to visualize things. You know the chemical equation, but now you can go 'Ha! This is what seawater is!' "

The backbone of the camp is Teresa Greely, 43. She plans the curriculum, manages the finances and keeps the girls in line.

Her long blond hair always looks like it just came out of the ocean. She wears Air Jordan sandals and a T-shirt with a picture of a roseate spoonbill.

Throughout each day, she dashes from station to station, fixing the printer, helping a group, quieting loud kids. She gets a lot of hugs along the way.

"She has the most extreme case of ADD I have ever seen," McNicol said with a laugh.

Greely joined the oceanography camp as a graduate student mentor in its second year. At the time, she was traveling the world studying fish. She was petrified of talking in front of people.

"I was very reserved, almost reclusive," Greely said. "It was actually the campers who inspired me to be an instructor."

By the next year, she was the camp director. She has been responsible for keeping the camp afloat for most of its existence, applying for grants and pestering local businesses for sponsorships.

As the campers filed in for their final presentation, Morgan led them in a rendition of "East to West, OCG is the best." Then they went from singing to science reports. They stumbled over words like "foraminifera," and made faces at each other from the front row, but they also explained biology concepts that were well over some of their parents� heads.

They continued with a graduation, and then the campers all did a silly dance -- something Morgan would never do with teenage boys around.

At the end of the ceremony, the faculty presented a slide show with pictures of the girls and funny captions. The show closed with a series of portraits, showing each girl and the potential science career she has chosen for herself. Gabrielle Davis wants to be a microbiologist. Haley London wants to be a marine science engineer. Emma Talley wants to be a physicist.

Most of the front row was sobbing.

Greely knows some will be lured away by other professions, but she is hopeful. For one night, at least, nearly every girl wants to be a scientist.