Research proves, in the career path of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), boys still out number girls 2-1. In efforts to encourage our girls to explore this career path, Parkside applied for and received an ORTOP (Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Progam) grant. This allowed for us to provide one complete Lego Robotics team for both girls and boys.

Lego Robotics involves building a unique robot and programming it to perform different tasks. Our students have worked hard and have gotten excited about the Lego robot they have built and programmed. They have bounced with joy as they've managed to get their robot to accomplish a variety of tasks.

As our students have learned, Lego Robotics is much more than just working with Legos and programming the robots. They also research a topic they are interested in, ask a question, come up with a solution to that question and present their solution. The girl's research question is: "How could we improve the way that someone learns about the Ocean?" Because their topic is about the Ocean, Mrs. Dina Wittler, the Oceanography teacher from Grants Pass High School, came to talk with the girls.

Mrs. Wittler said that the girls were so excited and interested in everything she had to say. Mrs. Wittler was quite engaging and even passed the "pop quiz" one of the girls gave her. Mrs. Wittler was even able to squash gender stereotypes and encourage enthusiasm in one fell swoop when one of the girls said that one of the pictures of an unusual sea creature was gross. She told the girls that they weren't gross, they were cool. A huge thank you to Mrs. Wittler for introducing our group of girls to the STEM career path, hopefully sparking an interest with in at least one of them to go into this field..

It is my hope that by the end of the year these students see they are capable of so many different things. I hope they continue to look for and take advantage of opportunities presented to them as they have this year. Their hard work and enthusiasm says they are well on their way to accomplishing great things.