GEMS goes Rural

GEMS provides positive STEM experiences for girls in grades K-12 through community and school programs, thereby eliminating most of the issues faced by rural girls: cost, lack of parent support, access, transportation, and availability of broadband. 

In Indiana, where GEMS is based now, 72 of the 92 counties are predominately rural in nature, and approximately 34% of the state's population lives in these rural counties (27.9% of the K-12 students). (2014--www.indstate.edu-- Rural Indiana) and NCES.ed.gov. But these rural counties produce only 21% of the state's high school graduates. (In.gov --2022--21st Century Scholars Equity Report)

Rural students in particular have historically faced numerous obstacles to entering STEM fields, including low educational aspirations, lack of STEM role models, and lack of access to advanced STEM curriculum (Versypt & Ford Versypt, 2013). Girls who live in these counties are deeply affected by the cuts in funding and redistribution of funds necessitated by reduced enrollments and increases in other specialized programs required by law. (July 1, 2016--EdWeek--Mader) 

And in 2020, the number of students in Indiana going on to higher education after high school has dropped significantly --to 53% from 65% in 2015. While girls from rural counties go to college in high percentages than boys, they are not going into the STEM fields. 

Girls in rural Indiana face all of the same barriers listed in articles related to girls in STEM published over the years:

• Lack of interest or knowledge of the opportunities in STEM fields; 
• Lack of confidence in their ability to succeed, 
• Lack of parent knowledge or support; 
• Lack of role models
• Prohibitive costs of programs
• Limited access to broadband
• No transportation

Our solution is to expand and support the expansion of the very successful model currently used by GEMS clubs all over the world, targeting rural school districts in Indiana and offering funding and support for STEM clubs and experiences for girls in these districts. 

We will do this by offering startup grants (leader stipends and supplies) to teachers in these schools to hold GEMS clubs for their girls using our model and resources. Districts will be encouraged to have at least two clubs in their districts so that club members and leaders can support each other, invest in quality supplies and training, and become a force to be reckoned with. We will use the existing partnerships created by the current placement of student teachers within the College of Education to further develop our outreach.

We will also create an online community of practice within the existing GEMS social media and resources to allow these clubs and leaders chances to share and collaborate on programming. 

This solution virtually eliminates all of the societal barriers listed above--

• Lack of parent knowledge or support--GEMS provides that 
• Lack of role models--part of the online resources on web site
• Prohibitive costs of programs--GEMS clubs are free
• Limited access to broadband--we use school broadband
• No transportation--the girls stay after school or come early--we work with parents to make this happen

The excellent programming and GEMS activities address the first two barriers: 

• Lack of interest or knowledge of the opportunities in STEM fields 
• Lack of confidence in their ability to succeed 

There are several videos of GEMS club in action on the GEMS web site: https://gems.education.purdue....

Our solution serves the girls in grades K-8 in rural Indiana school districts, with a special emphasis on encouraging high school girls to do service learning by assisting in developing and running GEMS clubs in lower grades. 

We want every girl in rural Indiana to have at least one successful, confidence-building STEM experience in her first eight grades of school. We want her to see herself as a chemist, a computer programmer, a food scientist, a GIS professional--we want her to think of herself as more--not better, but more than she has seen before. 

In GEMS, when we work with young girls, we usually choose the direction of the activities, using the tools in the GEMS Handbook  https://gems.education.purdue.... But as the girls get older, leaders are encouraged to plan collaboratively with the girls, to follow their interests, or challenge them with activities that will support them in their future, such as chemistry challenges the year before they take chemistry in school. We want to build success and confidence. 

Our track record with rural girls is anecdotal but impressive. One research study https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1305...done by the National Institute on Out of School Time showed that the model is successful in engaging girls and developing a science identity. Anecdotally, after 10 years of work in rural western Pennsylvania, GEMS has served over 4000 girls and sent them to places such as Carnegie Mellon University (Computer Engineering), Penn State (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) and many more. 

GEMS is now headquartered at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in the College of Education  https://gems.education.purdue....and CATALYST https://www.education.purdue.e... .  Students come to Purdue University from all backgrounds to become teachers, and are sent out to all parts of the state, including the rural communities we are targeting. We have the connections and the community in place. The Team Lead has thirty years experience running GEMS and lives in a rural community. She also taught for 39 years and served as an instructional coach, so she is very comfortable working with both girls and leaders.

We are teachers helping teachers, and this translates very well to supporting GEMS leaders.

The Purdue team is comprised of faculty in the College of Education, doctoral students in the College of Education, faculty and doctoral students from CATALYST and undergraduate student researchers. 

WIth more than 160 clubs all over the world,   https://gems.education.purdue.... we can't provide an exact number. But in one rural county in PA, for example, we have 12 clubs serving more than 250 girls a semester, with additional summer and Saturday programs. These specific programs have been in place for ten years. We also know that our resources shared on the web site and social media are accessed and shared frequently by more than 4000 people per year.

We are applying to build and expand our network by partnering, sharing and learning from and with others who have the same goals. We also are hoping to develop and model for rural delivery of our services that we can share for replication in other parts of the world. Our model is already easily replicated, but working with MIT Solve will refine and polish it for better distribution and expansion. 

We are also excited by the possibility of developing the online community of practice for GEMS leaders, which has been a goal since the donation of GEMS to Purdue. We have the infrastructure in place but will embrace the impetus of working with the MIT team to develop and implement this. 

We feel that being chosen to participate in this challenge will maximize the potential of GEMS.  

Laura Reasoner Jones is a graduate of the Purdue University College of Education, and has been an active member of the team of faculty running GEMS since it was donated to Purdue in 2018. She has created a large contingent of GEMS clubs in the rural county she lives in and is very familiar with the concerns and barriers to education faced by students in rural communities. 

Our solution is our current model, expanded to include start-up funding and building a community of practice. Our current model:

We provide a comprehensive Handbook for starting clubs, vast resources for programming, access to online role models, parent information and support, and information and research for prospective and current leaders through our web site and social media outlets FOR FREE. These resources are constantly reviewed and updated. We also provide information on how to financially support clubs and leader stipends. 

Purdue University College of Education uses GEMS clubs to do research on girls and STEM, and shares that through professional conferences and publications. 

This was innovative 29 years ago, and is still innovative in that it is all free; users are allowed to develop their activities as they wish to meet the local needs of their girls, and we publish the research that has been done surrounding the clubs. https://www.niost.org/Aftersch...  

Expanding GEMS clubs can change the market by extending the reach of GEMS, thereby increasing the number of girls having positive STEM experiences. 

1. Every girl in every school has at least one positive STEM experience in grades K-8. By that we mean that she participates fully in an activity or project that stimulates her to consider one aspect of STEM as a career or educational possibility and/or thinks of herself as a scientist or programmer or mathematician or an engineer.  

2. Every girl and her family has access to resources to inform and encourage further exploration of STEM education and careers.

1. Number of girls who enroll in local vo-tech centers through school systems

2. Number of girls who reply to surveys indicating interest in STEM

3. Number of clubs and increased attendance at clubs/events

Activities: 

• GEMS clubs and programs that are girl-focused, fun, hands-on, creative, and focused on STEM education careers

Immediate outputs: 

• Girls leave feeling positive about their time spent, and eager to continue. They also talk about it with parents and friends.
• Girls leave thinking they could do this anything, possibly as a student, in higher education, or as a career

Long-term:

• Girls take classes in high school that prepare them for future STEM careers
• Girls find role models and mentors to help them succeed in school.
• Girls complete training in chosen career.
• Girls serve as role models for others.

The core technology is the web site provided by the Purdue University College of Education. 

GEMS is part of the Purdue University College of Education and CATALYST. Faculty from these two programs advise, operate, and do research on girls in STEM. Very limited funding is provided for this support

All part time: 5 faculty members

                     2 doctoral students

                     1-2 undergraduate researchers

                      1 unpaid advisor (Former GEMS director)

29 years--since 1994--GEMS Founder

5 years for Purdue team

GEMS has always been open to all girls and individuals who identify as female. And because it is free, clubs have attracted girls who cannot afford the more expensive or exclusive opportunities frequently offered by schools or communities. 

GEMS leaders also work hard to create communities of support--places where it is fine to make mistakes, to break things, to get messy and to not be sure. We also provide resources to help the girls to reflect on their work, to really think about what they did and learned. https://gems.education.purdue.... We make it clear that GEMS is not school,(not that there's anything wrong with school) and that we are here for fun.

In the Handbook, we talk about grouping girls to expand their social experiences and to avoid cliques. We also show leaders how to talk with girls and parents about stereotype threat, growth mindset, and other approaches to helping girls succeed.

Our leadership team is currently all women, but is a very diverse group in terms of age and country of origin. While primarily white in student population, (It is a state university in Indiana, after all) Purdue University has a high proportion of international students and faculty and is about 25%  minority students. 

Our web site and social media information always strives to be representative of all cultures and origins.

Our business model is simple: Provide the resources for free and they will come. Not a week goes by without either a notification of a new club registering or a request for more information; sometimes we receive both. We do not promise to fund any clubs, but we do provide suggestions and resources on how to find funding. 

Because we value teachers' time and energy, however, we want to encourage the creation of clubs by supporting this targeted group of rural schools with support so that they will develop their own community of STEM educators.

The management and oversight of GEMS at Purdue is done through the College of Education and CATALYST. Individual clubs however, need to be self-supporting--GEMS provides resources on how to do this. 

The ideal situation would be to have either local clubs find a business partner with the same goal of getting more girls and women in the STEM pipeline, or a national partner who would fund leaders and supplies. 

One county in PA has managed to do this by working with its Community Foundation to access local grant funding. This has been very successful in expanding the footprint of GEMS and is shared as an example to other clubs. This county receives about $65000 a year to run clubs, and they have been able to access more funding through private foundations with the help of the Community Foundation. 

Over the years, GEMS has received many small grants and participated in several large programs that funded equipment, such as grants from FIRST, from the PA Dept of Education, and more. We also have been participants in evaluations funded by Google, NIOST, and more. NCWIT has been a great partner in funding summer programs through their Aspirations in Computing program. We also have partnered with the National Girls Collaborative Project to bring programs such as Code Club to our girls.