Dr Sarah Boulton

Associate Professor in Active Neotectonics and Co-Founder of Girls into Geoscience, Plymouth University

Girls into Geoscience: inspiring the next generation of female Earth Scientists

Girls into Geoscience is an initiative aiming to empower and encourage girls to consider degrees and careers in the Geosciences. Currently, < 40 % of places on Geoscience courses in the UK are taken up by girls, and this is something we are actively and successfully addressing. Our GiG event runs for 2 days and is primarily aimed at year 12 female students who are thinking about applying for university. June 2014 saw the first Girls into Geoscience day, and since then nearly 400 girls have attended from across the UK. On day one we offer a fieldtrip (to Dartmoor or Torbay), whilst day two consists of a day of talks and workshops, with topics from across the geosciences. The aim of the talks is to showcase the range of Geoscience career pathways that are possible across industry and academia, and provide role models for the girls. Speakers span the career spectrum from early career to experienced scientists, and they talk about their unique journey to becoming Earth Scientists, as well as informing the students about different disciplines and roles possible after graduation. In the afternoon, an insight into the university experience is given through hands-on workshops across a range of geoscience topics. The attendees really appreciate this option to focus on their interests, and it is part of our ethos to run the day in the style of an academic conference. Data collected from attendees has shown real impact. For example, in 2016, 75% of attendees at the end of the event said that they were more likely to consider studying geology, whilst 9% were already planning on doing so. A year later these students were about to start university courses, and 78% of respondents (55% response rate) were off to study geoscience or related courses at university, and 100% said they would recommend GiG to others. While in 2017, 70% of the students said they were more likely to do geology following GiG and 63% (39% response rate) went on to do geoscience related course in 2018. Since we started GiG we have seen many changes and positive steps in the recruitment, recognition and retention of women in STEM but there is still work to do nationally and internationally. GiG Ireland has now been running for 3 years and the initial GiG Scotland was held in Glasgow in August 2019. We are also working with other UK universities to develop Junior GiG for younger students with the aim of inspiring even younger students. We hope that we can continue to grow and run the event until it is no longer needed!

Biography

Sarah did an undergraduate master’s programme, MSci (Hons) Geology, at University College London and subsequently completed a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. She joined the team at the University of Plymouth in January 2006, where she was the only female lecturer in Earth Sciences at that time. Sarah was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 and became an Associate Head of School (Marketing and Student Recruitment) for the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences as of August 2019. Her research interests are in understanding the landscape response to active faulting and tectonics, the influence of earthquakes on landslide occurrence, and tsunamis in the geological record, with ongoing projects in Turkey, Morocco, New Zealand and Nepal. Having been the only female in the room on many occasions she is a passionate supporter of projects to support women in STEM and diversity in general.