Female students opting out of science Australia needs to do more to engage its girls in the hard sciences, according to a CSIRO chief. "As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator trying to create initiatives and excitement, things just go back down again," said Cathy Foley, the head of CSIRO's Materials Science and Engineering division. A passionate advocate for women in science, Dr Foley says it was frustrating to see declining enrolments in schools. "The number of people doing physics is dropping altogether, but the number of girls in particular is dropping at an alarming rate," she said. That means your pipeline from day one - which is people making the decision from Year 10 into Year 11 - they're choosing not to do science, which means fewer of them will be able to go on to do science at a university level. In Queensland, 1494 girls graduated from Year 12 physics in 2012, compared with 4311 boys. More than 470 boys passed Engineering Technology compared with 32 girls. Girls did better in chemistry, with about 100 more passing than boys; while in biology girls outnumbered boys by almost 4000. St Aidan's Anglican Girls' School in Brisbane has joined forces with The University of Queensland for a three day expo to encourage careers in science. More than 100 girls from schools across Queensland will attend the Aspiring Women in Science event at the school's Corinda campus this weekend. Acting Head of Science Sylvia Hicks said it would target girls who were about to make their subject choices for senior study and beyond. "Initially we thought it would be solely maths and engineering, but then we thought why stop there?" she said. We have speakers with medical backgrounds, pharmacy, physiotherapy, engineering, marine biology, genetics - the whole spectrum. Ms Hicks said it was important for girls to see and talk to women working in science. Dr Foley added cultural change was needed to ensure women stayed in the science industries through their 30s, when child-rearing and part-time work limited their options for exposure in the scientific community. There's still things [said] like 'if you're a real scientist, you won't work part-time', and I'm still hearing that now, and that's outrageous. The federal government this week launched the Women in Male-Dominated Industries Toolkit. The online resource is designed to reduce "occupational segregation" by offering advice and sharing experiences about attracting and retaining female staff. But Dr Foley and Ms Hicks agreed that resourcing at the high school level, coupled with engaged teachers, was key boosting the number of women working in science. "If you look at the schools that have lots of girls doing science and maths, it's a culture in the school, and it's often to do with the passion of the teachers and letting that passion come through," Dr Foley said.