Women account for less than twenty per cent of the workforce in science, math and engineering fields.  W.I.S.E. is a career day program that aims to address that imbalance by exciting and educating middle school girls with a personal and hands-on experience that could lead to a career in a math and/or science field.  At the same time, the program encourages these girls to continue enrolling in math and science courses in high school.

Project W.I.S.E. is organized through the Collaborative Project for Professional Development at Salem State College.  The collaborative is dedicated to linking students, teachers and industry representatives for the improvement of math and science education for today's changing work environment.  The W.I.S.E. Career Day initiative specifically targets young women at an impressionable age and exposes them to today's technologically oriented careers in mathematics and science.

This March, over 300 young women from over 20 different middle schools will be invited to an all day conference at Salem State College designed to encourage their interest in these challenging fields.  Each girl experiences three presentations given by professional women who work in math and/or science areas.  The careers represented run the full gamut from engineering on the 'Big Dig' in Boston to a plastic polymer researcher developing new ideas for the plastic industry.

Since the inception of W.I.S.E. in 1990, thousands of young women in the sixth through eighth grades from the North Shore area have been provided with both role models and insight into a wide variety of science and math related careers.

In order to participate in Project W.I.S.E. a school must be a member of the Collaborative.

We are currently in the process of finding presenters for our program.  If you are interested in presenting a workshop for WISE, please contact Daryl Mazzaglia at wise@salemcollaborative.org.