Video: Calhoun County Schools Expanding Minds Of Young Girls

CALHOUN COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- Fields like science, technology and engineering are mostly employed by men. Schools in Calhoun County though are trying to change that trend.

“We’ve really been striving to get the girls involved early and keep them interested,” said Jennifer Bennett with Calhoun County Career & Technology.

That’s the goal for girls in Calhoun County schools.

“We’re the first county in the state to have gone k-12 with robotics,” said Bennett.

Which means instructors start teaching STEM to students starting in kindergarten. The county also hosts Girl Power Days specific to 6th grade girls, which is what happened Thursday.

“What it’s geared towards is getting girls more interested in STEM related career pathways. So here at the Career Technical Center we have several STEM related activities of course,” said Bennett.

Activities like building electronic cars from scraps, learning CPR by singing a song and even digitizing media art on computers.

“It’s very rare for girls to go into those fields, yet their mindset and the way they think are really typically really good at those fields because they can multi-task,” said Bennett.

And the girls seem to love it.

“It was great. I had a lot of fun. I like the robot thing because it’s neat getting to build your own little robot and I like the wood work and getting to connect your own electrical wiring, and it was fun,” said 6th grader Kenley Parker.

Others believe it’s influential to expose them to the activities at an early age.

“I think it’s going to be an inspiration to some girls because most people think that boys can do mostly all the stuff and girls can’t because they’re girls. I think this will let people know that girls can do just as much as boys can do and that we can do anything if we really put our minds to it,” said Bennett.

Thursday’s event happened to fall on International Day of the Girl, which is centered around uplifting young girls to go for any career.