(Update: adding broadcast video).
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — February marked International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a global reminder that a girl’s curiosity is her superpower. It’s a message that girls belong in laboratories, tech hubs, and research centers — everywhere science is done.
In a two-part special report, KTVZ News highlighted the women who’ve made their mark in science. Now, in part two, we turn to the girls who are just beginning their journey, inspired, determined, and ready to take the lead.
For Mountain View High School junior Peyton Resmussen, the gap is something she’s already noticed. “I’ve talked to my grandma about her, like science classes, and she said, its more… a lot more men,” she said.
Pew Research shows men still outpace women in engineering, mechanical fields, astronomy, and physics, while women continue to excel in the health and life sciences, including healthcare, psychology, and veterinary medicine.
So what does that mean for today’s girls who dream of working in science and medicine?
Mountain View program brings science to life
At Mountain View High School in Bend, girls in the Biomedical Foundations program are already gaining real-life experience in the lab and in the field. The school partners with the Cascades East AHEC Health Occupations program, offering hands‑on rotations at St. Charles Bend.
Students learn about everything from nursing and radiology to caregiving for the elderly, getting a taste of what a career in healthcare feels like. Among them are two juniors — Peyton Resmussen and Elizabeth Warren, both eager to turn their interest in science into future careers.
Peyton is interested in working in the medical field. “Within our human anatomy class, we get to learn about, like, what’s happening in our body and learning just about all the different systems, particularly the digestive system, seeing how, like, those are all linked together and then just seeing, like, how it can come from just a big scale all the way down to like the molecular level,” she said.
‘Science is all around us.’
Elizabeth Warren says her focus is on environmental science, and she sees it as a field where girls can make an impact. “Science is all around us all the time. It is us. Consumes our everyday lives. And I think that it’s really important to dive deeper into that and look at every aspect of science,” she said.
Both young women say they’re aware of the disparity, that more men still hold science-related jobs than women. “It’s intimidating sometimes, like, seeing those numbers and seeing that there’s like, usually more men within it,” Peyton said.
Outnumbered, not outmatched
But these girls say being outnumbered doesn’t mean being outmatched. And when it comes to standing equal in science, they say one word matters most.
“Confidence because women, they give birth; they are very smart. I think that anyone should be just as confident in women as they are in men,” Elizabeth said.
For girls like Peyton and Elizabeth, it’s not about proving they can do science; it’s about proving they always belonged in it. “Women belong in the field just as much as men do, and it shouldn’t be based on, like, gender and that like they are welcome here and they are meant to learn this is not just supposed to be like guys or boys who are supposed to learn it,” Peyton said.
Mentors, motivation, and the road ahead
At Mountain View, these girls are breaking stereotypes, and they’re doing it with support from mentors who show them what’s possible. From classroom labs to local hospitals, Central Oregon’s girls in science are building the future of medicine, technology, and discovery.
Watch Tracee Tuesday’s first report on women in science here:
Women continue breaking barriers in science, but work remains to close gender gap