RESEARCH PAPER Empowering girls in STEM: Impact of the girls meet science project Defne Yabas 1 | Busra Sumeyye Kurutas 2 | Mehmet Sencer Corlu 1,3 1 Faculty of Educational Sciences, BAUSTEM, Bahçes ¸ehir University, _ Istanbul, Turkey 2 School of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, USA 3 Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies, OsloMet University, Oslo, Norway Correspondence Defne Yabas, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Bahçes ¸ehir University, _ Istanbul, Turkey. Email: defneyabas@gmail.com Abstract Gender equity is a critical agenda for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education to increase women involvement in the STEM pathway. Our study is about the impact of a project in which all-girl teams par- ticipated to an educational robotics program. We used quantitative and quali- tative data to determine the impact and understand the girls' program experiences. After the participation of the program, the mean scores have increased in interest in STEM, interest in STEM careers, STEM identity, and understanding of STEM scales. The groups underlined their problem solving and group work experiences, as well as their excitement and motivation related with the STEM activities. KEYWORDS educational robotics programs, gender equity, girls in STEM, STEM education, STEM project-based learning 1 | INTRODUCTION Representation of girls in Science, Technology, Engineer- ing and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines across all the school levels and workforce became a critical agenda in many countries around the world. Twenty first century cit- izens need to have an innovative mindset for the solution of world's complex problems. As STEM teaching-learning activities promises 21st century skills such as creativity, innovation, cooperation and communication, more and more students are encouraged to pursue STEM activities and STEM careers. Therefore, STEM practices are widely included in teaching-learning experiences as early as early childhood education. Based on deeply rooted gender ste- reotypes, gender equity becomes a critical issue for encour- aging girls to join the STEM pathway in early grades. The gender gap in STEM education in the Turkish context starting from middle grades has been also empha- sized by researchers. Researchers who worked on the Turkish students' performance in Programme for Inter- national Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found statistically significant differences in science and mathematics scores in favor of boys at PISA 2009 (Bellibas, 2016; Dinçer & Oral, 2013;Kılıç et al., 2012). The researchers also indicated that observable character- istics (e.g., family structure or school type) created an advantage for female students in mathematics, but male students were more successful in converting these advan- tageous characteristics into actual scores. Similarly, the return of studying schools that admit students by exami- nation is 7–8 points lower for girls than for boys (Gevrek & Seiberlich, 2014). Another researcher found that after considering many students' family and school characteristics, Turkish female students lagged male stu- dents by at least 7 points in PISA 2015 mathematics scores (Batyra, 2017). The researcher attributed the low performance of girls in mathematics and science to school-based anxiety. Following from the dropouts from the STEM pathway, women representation in STEM workforce was found to be very low. Although women comprised half of the Received: 5 March 2022 Revised: 2 June 2022 Accepted: 14 June 2022 DOI: 10.1111/ssm.12540 Sch Sci Math. 2022;1–12. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ssm © 2022 School Science and Mathematics Association. 1