Some are a little daunted by the task. Others are excited. In the middle of the room, one girl gingerly touches the inner workings of the central processing unit, seemingly afraid that any roughness will cause damage. Once "under the hood," however, it doesn't take her long to realize that a delicate tug isn't enough to get the components out. As the dismantling progresses, the confidence level in the room builds. And when the last component is reassembled and functioning, the noise in the room reaches a crescendo as the girls cheer and give high-fives.

"I don't think cheers and high-fives would be the reaction from a room full of boys who'd accomplished the same task," says Sandy Graham, a computer science lecturer and program chair for the Imperial Oil Seminar in Computer Science for Young Women. "Girls tend to lack confidence when it comes to computers, and it just never occurs to many of them that they can successfully take apart a machine and rebuild it."

Here, there are no marks, no pass or fail results. The girls who take part in the two week-long seminars held at Ontario's University of Waterloo each summer have an opportunity to focus simply on learning about computer science in a cooperative and supportive atmosphere. The 14- to 16-year-olds, who come from across Canada, are introduced to two core computer science disciplines: digital hardware design and modular programming. But the seminar's aim is to provide much more than academic instruction. It works to build computer confidence in girls and to send the message home with those who attend that computers can be of just as much interest to girls as they are to boys.

Lisette Yorke, a grade 11 student from Hillside Boularderie on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island, attended the program last summer. She vividly remembers dismantling and reassembling a computer. "I used to be scared of doing anything with the mechanics of a computer, because I thought I might do something wrong and cause irreparable damage," she says with a note of bemusement. "My fear made me afraid to try. The seminar took the mystery out of computers. When I returned home after the program, I dismantled our home computer and reassembled it. And it didn't even cross my mind to back away from installing a new CD burner my family bought. It's a small thing, but it's a huge change for me."

ACCORDING TO RECENT surveys, the percentage of science and engineering degrees awarded to women is increasing overall, while the percentage of computer science degrees awarded has decreased dramatically. In the mid- to late 1980s – when personal computers were first being introduced to homes and public interest in them was at its peak – 33 percent of the students enrolled in the undergraduate computer science program at the University of Waterloo were women. By 2000, the percent had dropped to 20 and today it stands at 13. Fewer girls are applying to computer science programs, notes Graham, and more girls are dropping out of them. She cites a number of reasons for this. "It's the unappealing image of the computer science geek," she says. "It's a lack of confidence. It's knowing you will be in the minority if you take the courses. It's not having enough female role models."

EMILY SPROULE, a grade 11 student from Lafleche Central School in Saskatchewan, confides that, despite having an aptitude for mathematics, she never considered pursuing a career in computer science prior to attending the Waterloo seminar. "I thought it was a boring, antisocial and pretty limited field," she says. "I just thought computer scientists were people who fixed computers. I know now that isn't the case. You can work in just about any area with computer science."

After the Waterloo seminar, Emily decided she wanted to take a computer science course in high school. Her school, however, is so small (encompassing kindergarten to grade 12, it has only 90 students in total) that it has few specialist teachers and none with the necessary skills to teach a computer science program. But Emily wouldn't be deterred. Her principal suggested that she enroll in an Internet-based correspondence course, which she did. Emily says she loves developing graphics but admits that programming can be a bit tricky. When she goes to university, she plans to take computer science, even if it is just as an elective. "Computers are fun," she says. "And you can't get far today if you don't have computer skills."

According to data from Statistics Canada and the Computing Research Association, fewer girls and women are enrolled in computer science at all levels than men and boys, and fewer women than men teach computer science, with women holding only seven percent of all full professorships in computer science in Canada. In the workforce, women represent only about 25 percent of computer professionals across the country.

"The lack of gender equity is such a problem," says Graham, a former computer science teacher in Atikokan, Ont., "that programs like ours need to be offered across Canada to young women in the early years of high school, when students begin to make decisions as to what university programs they'll apply to."

The dwindling percentage of women in computer science could in part be a result of some fundamental problems, according to a number of Canadian studies on the subject. It has been reported that girls, particularly from lower socio-economic groups, have less access to computers and the Internet at home than boys, and that girls use computers in less diverse ways.

Increasing girls' computer use may be required to increase their interest in computer science, but it is not the only answer. After all, computer science isn't about surfing the Internet or playing video games. It is a mathematics-based study that has applications in every high-tech field. The analytical skills required to develop hardware, software and graphics can be applied to a variety of disciplines. For example, one specialty, called bioinformatics, combines the latest ideas in computer science with new biological data to help find novel therapies for diseases. The Human Genome Project is one example of the work being done in this field.

CELINE LATULIPE, who is taking her PhD in computer science at the University of Waterloo, helps to run the seminar. She maintains that computer science is a creative process. "People often view computer science as a rigid, black-and-white, right-or-wrong discipline and believe that there's no creativity involved," she explains. "With computer science there is lots of creativity. It lies in developing programs and hardware components."

Latulipe didn't choose to go into computer science out of high school. In fact, it wasn't until she was half- way through an economics degree that she discovered, after taking only one computer science elective, that this was the career she wanted to pursue. An enthusiastic 30-year-old mother of two young children, she is passionate about her research and wants young girls to know that computer science is a rewarding field with the flexibility to balance both work and home life.

The women who run the seminar want the girls to see them as role models who are approachable and whose careers are attainable. In fact, providing the girls with role models is an important aspect of the seminar. During their week in Waterloo, the girls meet women at various academic stages, enabling them to grasp how women with a mathematical aptitude can develop into computer scientists.

"I just thought computer scientists were people who fixed computers. I know now that isn't the case"

ELODIE FOURQUET IS another passionate lecturer from the Waterloo seminar. She came to Canada from France in 1998 to study physics and improve her English. Being mathematically gifted, Fourquet had been encouraged to take high school courses that would prepare her to study pure math and sciences in university. It was through her electives that she discovered computers. She had always been interested in fine arts and for her electives enrolled in some art courses, one of which focused on computer graphics. Her interest in computers grew, and in second year, she took a programming class. It wasn't long until she was hooked. "When I saw the utility of it, I said, I'm ready to do this full time," she recalls. Today, Fourquet is in the second year of a master's degree in computer science, specializing in non-photorealistic rendering, a form of computer graphics programming. "The program I am in allows me to combine physics with graphics, which requires a lot of math – and art."

GIRLS ATTENDING THE SEMINAR don't spend every day working on the computer. They experience campus life and go on various outings with their instructors – from plays at the Stratford Festival to rock climbing. They gain independence and learn that they will be able to cope if they attend university away from home.

The seminar, which was launched in 2002, initially enrolled 40 young women. In 2003, the Imperial Oil Foundation committed to providing $1 million to the University of Waterloo over five years to fund professional development for teachers and the newly named Imperial Oil Seminar in Computer Science for Young Women. (Each year, $140,000 of the contribution goes toward covering the costs of the seminar and the transportation and accommodation of the students.) The gift has allowed the seminar to be expanded to accommodate 96 students at two week-long sessions.

"At Imperial Oil, we are committed to building a diverse and healthy workforce," says Barbara Hejduk, president of the Imperial Oil Foundation. "By helping draw more women into the technology and science fields, we believe we are making the best possible investment in Canada's future."

There is competition to attend the seminar – last year, 800 girls applied for the 96 spots. The girls who take part in the program are accepted partly because of their academic performance. They must have a good math mark, but geography is a consideration too. At least two girls are accepted from every province and territory for each seminar. "The number of applicants shows that there is a real interest in a program like this," says Graham. "We couldn't go wrong with whomever we chose."

BETSY MAWDSLEY IS a grade 10 student at P.W. Kaeser High School in Fort Smith, N.W.T. "I never felt that boys were better, just more interested in computers," she says. Betsy has always been a strong math student, but she had had little exposure to computer science. When her math teacher suggested she apply to the Waterloo seminar, she thought it would be "a waste of time." Betsy, an accomplished biathlete who this year competed at the Arctic Winter Games, said the Waterloo seminar completely changed her future career choice. "It was a groundbreaker," she says. "It let me see what I could do for a career."

The experience also helped her realize that her education and understanding of mathematics was just as good as that of the other participants. Betsy had worried that because of limited resources and isolation, her education might not have been as good as the education received by people in the south. But she found that there was no basis for her fear. "The program gave me confidence," she says. "I realized that I can compete with students from anywhere in Canada." Betsy now plans to take computer science at the University of Waterloo after she graduates from high school and is currently sharpening her computer skills independently with the help of her high school instructor and training modules sent from Alberta.

"It's important to understand what women bring to the table," says Latulipe. "They bring a different perspective to program development and different ways of solving problems. If a computer program is being developed for the public market, the ideas behind that product should reflect the interests of those who will use it." And in both business and personal life, women are big users of software.

Building up the critical mass of women in computer science is essential in order for the program to be self-sustaining. And if the first steps to building that critical mass are to raise awareness and change perceptions, then the Seminar in Computer Science for Young Women is well on its way to success. In an informal survey, girls who attended the seminar in 2002 were asked at the beginning if they planned to take computer science courses at school. Of those whose schools offered computer science, 44 percent said they planned to. By the end of the seminar, the number had risen to 81 percent.

But the real aim of the program is not about getting all the participants to go into computer science in university. "It's about changing the image that computer science has among girls at the grassroots," Graham stresses. "If these girls get the word out around their schools that computer science is a viable career option for women, then we have accomplished our goal."

Women bring a different perspective to program development and different ways of solving problems

SITTING AT THE COMPUTER in her Cape Breton home, Lisette Yorke scrolls through the list of courses she can take in university next year. She says she wants to be an engineer but hasn't ruled out computer science just yet. She is alerted to an e-mail that has arrived from the Northwest Territories. It's a message from her roommate at the seminar last summer. "If I hadn't been to Waterloo, I wouldn't have met anyone in my hometown who could give me a good picture of what it means to specialize in computer science," she muses. But the seminar enriched her life far beyond providing her with an understanding of computer science, she says. It gave her the confidence to look for challenges. "I know now that whatever I choose to do, I will be doing something that challenges me," she says. "And I know that whatever I decide to do, computers will be part of it." And that is a fact that excites her.