Girl Scouts has been inspiring girls to sharpen their science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills since its founding in 1912.
Since 2014, UNO has been a community partner of Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska, helping the metro’s troops explore various aspects of STEM.
Krista Testin, UNO instructor and planetarium operator, took a group of scouts to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland in 2018 through the Reaching for the Stars program.
“It’s a NASA grant with the U.S. Girl Scouts to start astronomy clubs, working with their local astronomers to also help assist,” Testin said. “I have the approach from the Girl Scout side because my daughter is a Girl Scout.”
After participating in the program, Testin and her team launched Beyond Our World Astronomy Clubs at the beginning of 2019, meeting in three locations: Chadron, North Platte and Omaha.
Opportunities to engage with women in STEM careers, as Testin has worked hard to provide Girl Scouts in Nebraska, are vital to encourage a lasting interest in STEM subjects.
According to a 2018 study by Microsoft, 41 percent of European women aged 11 to 30 who had a role model in a STEM field said they had an interest in STEM subjects, twice as many as those without role models.
Shannon Petersen, marketing strategist for Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska, said Girl Scouts, and the organizations they partner with, encourages girls’ interest in STEM.
“So maybe they never even thought about astronomy as a career, but they go to join the astronomy club to learn about the stars and constellations,” Petersen said. “They meet Krista at the planetarium, and they see this whole new world of opportunity of things they can do.”
As STEM programs evolve all over the country, Girl Scouts are partnering with local colleges to make dreams a reality.
“The benefit of the Girl Scouts partnering with a school like the University of Nebraska at Omaha is that it exposes girls to college,” Petersen said. “A lot of girls, especially underserved girls, may not have family members that have gone to college. They may not know a lot about college, but it encourages them to be like ‘hey, I could do this, too!’”
