THOUSAND OAKS : Women in Sciences Address Students

Niki Cairns isn’t crazy about math.

But the eighth-grader at Hillcrest Christian School in Thousand Oaks spent Friday listening to women who have made a career in professions that require a lot of mathematics and science.

Learning the subjects “gives you more opportunities,” Niki said. “The more jobs you know about, the more things you can choose from.”

That’s the kind of attitude organizers of the 1993 Math & Science Conference hoped to get across. The conference, at Newbury Park High School, drew 362 sixth- through ninth-grade students, all but five of them girls.

They got to handle snakes, test blood samples, dissect a computer and an owl pellet, and eat M&M; candies, all in the name of science.

“It way exceeded our highest expectations,” said conference organizer Therese Hughes.

The attendance was even more satisfying because most of the students gave up a day off to attend, organizers said. Schools in the Conejo Valley Unified School District were closed Friday for teacher training.

The conference was sponsored by the American Assn. of University Women, which has launched a national campaign to increase the interest among female students in math and science. Association studies show that because of peer pressure, girls are often discouraged from taking such classes even though a math and science background are often required for many professional careers.

And, sixth-grader Amanda Aquina noted, “Even if you are a housewife you need math.”

The women teaching the classes were often delighted to share their experiences with the younger girls.

“I love my career,” said Pamela Hunt, a research scientist at the biotechnology firm Amgen in Newbury Park. “I just think this is so much fun to want to know how something works.”

Hunter set up a simple experiment for her students to perform.

“I come to the lab and do an experiment and if it works you say, ‘Yeah, this is really neat. I figured it out.’ ”

Besides, she added, “you get to use lots of cool equipment, too.”