17 students and four girls. 15 students and three girls. Those are the rosters of the IB Physics HL classes.
Physics teacher Amy Osborn noted the lack of female enrollment in the class. Osborn said the underrepresentation of women in physics extends beyond high school.
“I think that is a blanket true statement,” Osborn said.
Osborn noted her experience in college as the only female physics major in her graduating class.
“I graduated college [in] 2005, and I went to a small school,” Osborn said. “We only had 12 physics majors my year. My classes were larger [than others], but of the 12 physics majors, I was the only girl.”
Physics 1 teacher Maureen Clark noticed the difference between male and female enrollment as well in their college experience.
“There were, in a class of 20, probably five [girls],” Clark said.
Osborn also noted the lack of minority representation within the field. Osborn believes there are two kinds of women and minorities that attempt to pursue a degree in science.
“You either feel like there isn’t a place for you, and you find somewhere where there is,” Osborn said. “Or you dig your heels in, get really stubborn, and declare that this is your space, and you’re going to be there and you’re going to do the thing.”
Osborn thinks getting students involved in physics begins before high school.
“I think the real answer is representation in media,” she said. “I think it’s representation that they see throughout their lives growing up. [If] every time we imagine a scientist, we stop imagining Einstein and start imagining some of these other contributors.”
Osborn ensures that she gives credit to minority and female scientific discoveries when teaching.
“I joke in my class when we learn various historical things that happen in physics that, you know, here’s something that we all learned came from some old white dude,” she said. “Well, here’s an example of where it was actually done 1000 years earlier in the Middle East somewhere, here’s an example of the Egyptians doing it before we ever had any idea about it, and we just always give credit to the old white dude who did it.”
Osborn believes this will help decrease the female-male and minority-majority ratios.
“If everybody could be in a classroom where they saw those other groups represented and felt like they had that place in that classroom, and they deserve to be there contributing going forward, then we can get rid of that stigma that it’s always old white dudes,” she said.
Osborn believes steps can be taken at Marshall to get more minority and female involvement.
“Start by going to the ninth-grade biology classes, the 10th-grade chemistry classes, and finding ways to encourage those students to sign up through the math classes,” Osborn said.
Osborn encourages teachers and students to showcase examples and people in physics.
“We go to younger and younger students and we encourage them,” Osborn said. “We show them examples of what they can do with this, how they can be successful and how they have a place in that classroom.”