Gaining Options - Girls Investigate Real Life (GO-GIRL), a ten-week program designed to improve seventh grade girls’ performance in math and sciences, is returning to Wayne State this winter for its 10th semester.
Sally Roberts, an assistant professor in the clinical department, is one of the primary founders of the program.
“It was based on the fact that girls at this age can start falling behind,” Roberts said. “It’s after that point and time that girls have to make choices about the mathematics that they’ll take as they move into high school.”
Roberts stressed how important it was for intervention to take place for girls in the seventh grade.
Many important decisions have to be made within the next year that can critically affect what choices they make in the future, she said.
“The eighth-grade year is a chance that they can either take algebra or just take one of the general math classes,” Roberts said, “and those decisions then impact the courses that they can take through their high school career. And if they don’t take [certain] things, then they can’t continue to do things later on like get into college or get into programs.”
Saundra Sumner, of Wayne State’s College of Education, worked closely with Roberts within GO-GIRL. Sumner spoke with admiration about the program.
“I think the most fulfilling part would be actually working with the kids, and just to see their excitement, how they initially come in, you know, never being in an all-girl program and how they just develop their friendships with the other girls,” she said.
Sumner put her own daughter through the program and was extremely impressed with the results.
“I mean, in just ten weeks, they get so much out of this that it’s something you almost can’t learn just sitting in a regular classroom,” Sumner said. “It’s just an excellent program. I think every seventh-grade girl should be involved in it.”
Research done for the program showed that Sumner’s feelings towards the program were facts.
“Research thus far shows that it [GO-GIRL] increases their confidence and their confidence in mathematics from pre-post data,” Roberts said.
GO-GIRL is leaving a major mark on its participants. Roberts spoke of how students change their career plans after going through the program.
“I just heard from one young lady just now that she changed her career choices, now taking AP science courses in high school so that she’ll go on to be a scientist later,” Roberts said.
Another girl left her plans for journalism behind, and is now fully pursuing her dream of becoming an environmental scientist.
“So, you never know what can happen in GO-GIRL!” Roberts said, laughing.
Roberts also spoke of future plans GO-GIRL had snuck under its sleeve. The program plans to hold Parent Cafes three times during the semester. Parents will be invited to this event to learn ways to support their daughters as they continue in their educational endeavors.
Not only does the program also have hopes for a GO-GIRL reunion, but it’s also planning to open up sites for the program in other states. GO-GIRL has sites in Washington D.C., Chicago and Pennsylvania. It is currently starting sites in Connecticut and Alaska.
GO-GIRL is offered free of charge on Wayne State’s campus every Saturday, beginning Feb. 1.
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