The WOW! Children’s Museum in Lafayette is working to make sure girls stay interested in science, technology, engineering and math by seeing women working in those fields. A recent Girls in Science night encouraged girls to explore a variety of STEM careers, and interact with a woman working in those jobs.

Dozens of girls and their parents walked around the museum Friday night, learning about herpetology, solar panels, aerospace and medicine.

Anna Talley, director of operations at WOW!, said the seventh annual Girls in Science night was a way to show girls that they are scientists now — and can still be, when they grow up. Talley stated there have been multiple studies proving that there is a point where girls stop pursuing STEM classes at a disproportionate rate, when compared to boys in their class.

“In third grade, there’s still a 50-50 divide of who’s interested in science and math. By eighth grade, there’s a significant departure in those percentages,” Talley said.

While the Girls in Science event is catered to girls 5 to 11 years old, Talley hopes the event helps foster that curiosity and lets girls know they can continue to pursue STEM careers.

Talley said just about every female scientist at the event started out with curiosity in that subject at a young age, and found a way to keep that fire alive.

“If you feel that fire now, keep it lit, keep pursuing. We are all in support of you,” Talley said.

Claire Douglas, education programs coordinator at WOW!, hosted a booth about lunar craters to help get girls interested in astronomy. By dropping marbles into sand, kids were able to see how craters on the moon are formed.

“It’s really to encourage girls to see what the possibilities are for them and how broad and how varied and how exciting it is to work in a STEM field and see other women doing these really cool things,” Douglas said.

Douglas also said at a certain stage of adolescence it becomes less instinctive for girls to pursue a STEM career than it is for boys, and WOW! holds events like Girls in Science to get them to remain curious about science.

Allison Halvorson took her young daughter to the event, and said this is the first year her daughter is starting to understand and show more curiosity about the world around her.

“Just as a woman and as a mother of a daughter, it’s really important to me that she can see that she can do whatever she wants and that somebody in science doesn’t look a certain way,” Halvorson said.

Cindy Rueckert, a WOW! board member and aerospace engineer, said the event is a way to get girls excited about science. She said if girls can see someone they resonate with in a science field, they can see themselves in that role when they are older.

One activity Rueckert holds for the kids is to have them draw what they think a scientist looks like, which results in a lot of drawings of men in glasses. But by the end of a lesson, the kids depict completely different people because once they understand the science, they can see themselves in that field.

“Now they understand that a scientist doesn’t look a certain way,” Rueckert said.