STREAM Girls Camp Connects Fly Fishing and STEM

by Jamie Vaughan, TU Rogue River Home Rivers Initiative Project Manager

Trout Unlimited continues to get Michigan girls connected with their local streams through the lens of an angler, artist, and scientist through STREAM Girls. TU’s STREAM Girls program is about breaking down barriers and providing support in two male-dominated arenas: STEMrelated careers and the sport of fly fishing. This national program impacts significant numbers of young women across the country and empowers the next generation of coldwater conservation stewards. This is particularly true in Michigan, where TU staff has connected with local partners to bring STREAM Girls to as many girls as possible.

STREAM Girls combines Science, Technology, Recreation, Engineering, Art, and Math. During STREAM Girls, girls explore their local stream by getting in waders and making observations and recordings in field notebooks. Girls feel the cold water, look for riffles and pools, learn about woody debris and fish habitat, and make connections between what is happening on the land and how that impacts the creek they’re exploring. The girls then employ some STEM lessons to measure water flow using ping pong balls. They use d-nets to collect aquatic macroinvertebrates and understand how they can be used to learn about water quality. They then tie colorful woolly buggers while learning how they mimic the stream insects and when they hatch. Lastly, the girls learn to cast a fly rod and catch “lawn trout” until they are ready to put their cast to the test and go fishing.

TU launched the STREAM Girls program in Michigan in 2017 and, to date, has held 15 camps for nearly 400 middle school girls. TU began the program by partnering with the Girl Scouts and has since expanded its reach with the help of partners across the state.

While TU works to engage youth through many different programs, STREAM Girls stands out for those who experience and teach it. A professional evaluation of the program that was completed through pre-and posttests administered to the participants in 2019 found that “Girls participating in STREAM Girls programs generally showed increases in self-efficacy for science, science literacy, and interest and commitment for environmental actions. As well, their knowledge of ecology after the program was shown to increase related to stream, watershed, and macroinvertebrate content.”

STREAM Girls aims to close the gender gap in science education and improve women’s underrepresentation in the STEM workforce by providing access to meaningful out-of-school science education and opportunities to learn science in a single-sex, informal education setting. In doing so, the program instills in participants an interest in science and confidence in STEM while also connecting them to their community’s watershed.

But STEM isn’t the only place where women are underrepresented. By introducing girls to the art of fly tying and getting them comfortable with a fly rod in their hand, TU hopes to garner a love for fly fishing. As women tend to care for what they love, TU believes that by getting more women interested in fly fishing at a young age, we will have many more stewards protecting our precious water resources.

During STREAM Girls, girls have the opportunity to work with and learn from women in the environmental field as well as women anglers. The Flygirls of Michigan, a group dedicated to providing women fly fishing and educational opportunities, have provided the bulk of the fly casting and tying education at the camps and have become the hallmark of the success of the Michigan camps. To date, 14 Flygirls have donated over 200 hours to the STREAM Girls program.

“It was great fun teaching fly casting to these bright

young ladies at the TU Stream Girls event yesterday. I love encouraging young girls to get out on the water and have some fun!” said Flygirl Lindy Ihrman after teaching fly casting to Girl Scouts on the Flat River.

This year, TU will be expanding the program to the east side of the state thanks to a recently awarded grant through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Education Program.

TU will continue to run STREAM Girls programs in West Michigan and launch new programs in the Rouge River and Detroit River watersheds with the help of the Friends of the Rouge, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Alpena Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office Detroit River Sub-station), Michigan State University Department of Forestry, and other key community groups and volunteers in these watersheds.

By reaching audiences from three of Michigan’s top five most diverse counties, TU will provide outdoor and informal education opportunities to girls who have not typically participated in these types of activities, giving them equitable access to these programs and a new perspective on the role of women and women of color in science and fly fishing.

TU is excited to have the opportunity to get girls out to investigate their local streams and get a fly rod in their hand, inspiring a new class of STREAM Girls to care for Michigan’s greatest resource. Thanks to the amazing support of partners, TU chapters, and volunteers, STREAM Girls will help even more young women learn new skills in a comfortable environment and gain more confidence in STEM fields and fly fishing.

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