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‘‘The American Association of University Women has always been concerned about women and girls as far as equity issues,” Crocker said. ‘‘[AAUW] just came out with a study [and found] equity is still an issue in terms of pay equality and promotion to CEO positions.”

Crocker, who declined to give her age, said the program isn’t designed to address achievement gaps between girls and boys, but to make sure girls remain interested in math and science after middle school, noting that there’s an under representation of women in those fields.

She said she hopes her program causes girls to start question the world around them.

‘‘We want the students to start asking questions and looking for the answers,” said Crocker, a University Park resident. ‘‘Why do the seasons change? Why are the leaves falling from the tress? Why do things happen the way they happen? Science is a way of looking at the world and trying to understand it.”

Their work earned them recognition Oct. 3 as the Southern Prince George’s Business and Professional Women’s 2007 Women of the Year. BPW is a national grassroots organization that works to achieve equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education and information.

Crocker worked in education for nearly 30 years a teacher and administrator in Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Prince George’s County. After retiring a few years ago, she continued to volunteer at University Park Elementary School.

Crocker said even though she studied philosophy in college, she has always been interested in science and how the world works.

After meeting Carter, the two women began discussing the benefits of mentoring and what they could do to combine their efforts.

Carter of Accokeek, the director for diversity in the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, said she and Crocker felt the goals of the college’s Science and Technology: Addressing the Need for Diversity program and AAUW were very similar.

‘‘The American Association of University Women’s mission is to promote and advance equity for women and girls through education, research and advocacy,” she said. ‘‘Both [AAUW and STAND] are focused on the importance of education, equity and advocacy.”

In the spring 2006 semester, the two women piloted Girls Excelling in Math and Science at Hyattsville Middle School, offering hands-on lab activities taught by undergraduate student mentors from the University of Maryland. Nearly 50 girls have participated in the program, and another 32 enrolled this year.

‘‘They teach science in middle school, but [GEMS] has an emphasis on hands-on lab activities. So the concepts are being taught, but through lab activities,” Crocker said.

The program is offered to the girls through an in-school enrichment period held every other Friday and an after-school-mentoring program. Crocker said she hopes that the program will be able to expand to other area middle schools soon, but is waiting for additional funding. She said they have reached out to William Wirt and Nicholas Orem middle schools, though nothing is final yet.

‘‘What I would like is for the GEMS mentoring project to be used as a model for comparable programs,” she said.

Isabel Regidor, seventh-grade science teacher at Hyattsville, said the experiments enhance her lessons.

‘‘They get the fun part of science,” she said. ‘‘My class is mostly writing but here they get to do experiments and hands-on activities.”

The labs are also what eighth-grader Jazmin Henriquez, 13, said she enjoys the most about GEMS.

‘‘I like doing experiments and testing how things work,” she said. ‘‘But I’ve always been interested in math and science. I like to discover how things are made and how they grow and develop. And math is my favorite subject.”