WHEELING — Educators in Ohio County Schools believe if elementary girls get exposure to engineering and science programs now, it could spark their future interest in science-related careers.

The school district plans to start an afterschool program for girls in grades 3-5 focusing on science, technology, education and math (STEM) activities, explained JoJo Shay, innovation coordinator for Ohio County Schools.

This week Ohio County Schools received a $10,000 grant from the Sonneborn Foundation to help cover the cost of the program.

She expects the program could start as early as November. The afterschool STEM learning will take place at one location, which has yet to be determined, Shay explained.

“There will be a focus on engineering, and the overall design process of technology,” she said. “Because our middle school and high school teams have been so successful in robotics, there will be some instruction in robotics and coding.

“For us, just to expose the female population in our schools to those types of careers is important. We know women don’t go into those careers en masse.”

While there are girls on the school district’s successful middle school and high school robotics teams, the proportion of girls to boys participating “is definitely not 50-50,” according to Shay.

Shay suspects the exposure could lead them to take classes pertaining to science and technology when they get to high school, then perhaps inspire them to enter STEM careers later in life.

“The next great step is to take that generation of students, expose them to the activities we already have to see if there is any spark there,” she continued.