Nicole Green, Grade 10 student at Olds High School, brought home a gold medal from the week-long Canada Wide Science Festival at McGill University in Montreal.
Nicole's ambitious project was titled Gender Imbalance: the Influence of the Stereotype Threat on Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM).
"This was a highly professional and thorough project for a student in Grade 10. It was a gold medal project, for sure!" said Ruth Roedler, a retired Chinook's Edge teacher. Ruth worked on the national science fair committee for four years and continues to be a strong volunteer.
This was the fourth time Nicole took a project to the national science fair, and she has been taking part in the annual science fair event at her school since she was in Grade 3. Her success in science is perhaps even more interesting, since her true interest is in psychology.
"I think my project was a bit unusual because most are more science and engineering based, but I'm glad it was so well received," said Nicole. "People relate to this concept of stereotyping, because they see it in their own lives. I actually discovered that the stereotype was larger than what I had hypothesized, which surprised me. Even with the very first group I surveyed, I found that most of the 60 people believed the stereotype."
Nicole went on to conduct a series of procedures which included giving negative comments before leading a science test with a group, where the women participants scored 20 percent lower. She then added the variable of five minutes of self-affirmation exercises with the group before the test, which resulted in test scores being equal between male and female participants. In the end, her project involved two colleges and the Telus Spark Science Centre.
"Everyone I approached was incredibly helpful and super accommodating to work with - they took a real interest in my project," said Nicole. "What I would really like to do is become a human rights lawyer, because this experiment shows there's a lot of things to fix out there! I think the situation is improving, because when I studied stats from 20 years ago I see that the women who overcame the stereotype are really strong in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The message isn't that everyone should pursue a career in these fields, but they should have the choice and not be left out by false concepts of what they are capable of."
This year, Chinook's Edge students comprised the entire Central Alberta Team that participated at the national science fair in Montreal: Ben Jud and Kirk Rieberger (Innisfail High School), Brandon Green (River Valley School in Sundre), Ryan Walker-Melton, Rachel Land and Nicole Green (Olds High School).
