Black Girls Do STEM is diversifying innovation, empowering Black girls to achieve equitable representation in STEM. 

Black girls deserve to have a culturally relevant experience that tailors STEM workshops to hands on exercises and career pathways based on their interest. This creates a sacred space where they feel empowered to learn alongside other Black girls, and can set high expectations but still tap in to their own curiosity by first believing in themselves. 

The top three things we hear from Black girls as it relates to their education experiences are:

• Teachers and educators often set low expectations for them as it relates to math and science. 
• They often feel out of place and isolated in STEM programs and classes due to the low amount of people who look like them. 
• STEM is just not for them and they do not relate.  They do not even have the confidence to try. Typically, a result of fear and the internalization of other low expectations. 

In America as of 2014, 25% of all schools with majority Black and Latinx populations do not offer math courses beyond Algebra II (Source). While it is reported that this number is slowly growing, our own state of Missouri recently dropped the Algebra II requirement for high school graduation, now only requiring it for students who took Algebra I prior to high school. In the St. Louis region alone, based on the City of St. Louis Equity Indicators report, white students are 4x more likely to participate in advanced math and science at the high school level than their Black peers when comparing St. Louis Public Schools data. This is important because, according to the National Science Board underneath the National Science Foundation, high school access and achievement in advanced math and science continues to be the number one indicator for post-secondary success in a STEM program (Source). Furthermore, white girls are 4x more likely to be in a gifted and talented program in K-12 education in comparison to their Black female peers.  

This lack of equity in education leaves a projected 10 million STEM sector jobs unfilled in our St. Louis region by 2030 (Source). These are jobs that will not go to our current middle school and high school Black youth. According to the state of St. Louis Workforce Report for 2019, employers have reported the shortage of workers with knowledge and skill remains the number one barrier to increased full time employment in the region. 

These factors are what led me to start Black Girls Do STEM. 

My name is Cynthia Chapple. I am a Black woman. I am a research chemist. I have worked at companies with 100s of employees and others with 10’s of thousands. I have attended top research universities with alumni working and living all over the globe. Often throughout my professional and educational pursuits I have been the singular Black woman in many spaces.

I can recall how it felt to go to a new school in Indiana my sophomore year of high school and the counselor tried to place me in remedial pre-Algebra when I had just left being a part of a high school advanced Algebra and taking Geometry simultaneously within Chicago Public Schools. I know far too well the feeling of walking into the Chemistry lab and being selected dead last to be someone’s partner with no other Black girl in sight. I have lived the countless hours of math and science tutoring through university resources after a failed placement test as I was not as ready for college level math and science as maybe I should have been. My triumphs have not always come easy, yet here I stand today as a research chemist and I desire to share this message with other Black girls  “you are STEM capable, and you got this.”

Black Girls Do STEM is diversifying innovation, empowering Black girls to achieve equitable representation in STEM.  We focus on building confidence, 21st century skills and the future STEM workforce. Black Girls Do STEM is a part of a larger solution for racial and educational equity in our region. The work of myself and the Black Girls Do STEM family is a part of the collective action so many organizations are doing in our region and we are honored to add our piece and say that Black Girls Do STEM! 

– Cynthia Chapple, Founder Black Girls Do STEM Website