Why do girls need special STEM programs? Girlstart executive director Tamara Hudgins has a ready answer: "Because every girl under-represented in STEM."

Hudgins calls her group "both-sex friendly," but notes that when girls and girls participate in project-based learning, the girls tend to pull back and not engage fully. "We create an environment where girls feel safe and can take risks and learn together," she added.

It's also fun. "We don't believe academic rigor is necessarily inconsistent with having a good time. We think it is important to meet girls where they value us, so our programs will appear as pink and fun and sparkly and dynamic. And that's a great way to keep girls engaged, so that they stay engaged. Then, during course of their experiences, they say, 'Hey, this is for me.' We encourage girls to the be the authors of their future," Hudgins said.

So far, it seems to be working. Founded in Austin, the organization has begun to branch out beyond its Central Texas roots. Over the past five years, it has increased its after-school programs to 46, from 9, and now reaches 1,000 girls each week. Its summer camps have quadrupled to 25 in four different states.

Girlstart's summer camp and after-school programs both passed the Change the Equation's STEMworks vetting process for high-quality STEM education programs. It also named its summer camp program as one of only four programs "ready to scale."

One reason the classes scored high on the STEMworks assessment is that Hudgins keeps projects active and interactive.

"You never see tables and chairs," she explained. Our girls are always engaged in hands-on activities. They're on the floor and other non-traditional places, and that breaks down barriers so girls can have a good time. We get them working together in small groups, and that essential human element is what girls see as being for them. And when we surveyed them, 91 percent of the girls who come to after-school feel they can be themselves."

Hudgins also tackled the scaling issue. Many programs start with a committed core of star academic performers, but lose steam when they have to recruit outside that group.

Girlstart has kept course quality high by using an open model that values what teachers, community volunteers and students say. It also partners with institutions of higher learning and recruits college students to teach after-school classes.

"They are really fantastic messengers," Hudgins said. "Among our students, 97 percent say they would like to go to college, but 55 percent be first generation college students. When we have a college student coming to their school every week to teach them, it shows them what that would look like."

That might have made a difference in her life. "My dad was an engineer," she recounted. "His brothers were engineers. Their dad was an engineer. I grew up in an environment that should have been very engineering-friendly.

"But when I was young, I did not have role models around me that showed me what it would look like when I was an adult and was an engineer. I did not comprehend what my life would be like, what my house would be like, what kind of dogs I would have, what are the trappings of being an engineer.

"That is one of the complicated issues we have to get at when we speak with girls, because girls are beginning to formulate ideas about what their life is going to be like, and it includes very complicated things about what they see every day. I they can't see what life is going to be like when they are an engineer, or what they will be doing, or how they are going to make a difference, then they are not going to be able to opt into those majors and those careers," Hudgins said.

Hudgins could not see the connection, one reason she gravitated towards the arts. But when she worked for international non-profits, she saw how engineers could use their smarts to change communities and lives. That led her to rethink how she felt about engineering.

Hudgins hopes to one day earn her own engineering degree. And through Girlstart, to give girls a chance to see what a career in engineering would look like.