Here’s a fact that should bother everyone in education: girls and boys perform equally well in math and science during school. There is no ability gap. And yet between ages 11 and 15, girls lose interest in STEM — and the pipeline narrows from there. Only 35% of STEM graduates are women. Only 25% of the STEM workforce.

The usual response is targeted outreach programs. Girls Who Code. SciGirls. After-school clubs. These are well-intentioned and often excellent — but after years of effort, they’ve reached a small fraction of the girls who need them. Some researchers have even raised concerns that targeted programs may unintentionally reinforce the very stereotypes they’re trying to fight, signaling that women have an inherent lack of fit in STEM.

Why girls leave STEM

The research points to two primary drivers, and neither is ability.

Stereotypes and stereotype threat. By second grade, when students draw a scientist, they tend to draw a white man. Girls internalize the message that STEM is masculine, and stereotype threat — the phenomenon where people perform worse when reminded of negative stereotypes about their group — actively undermines their performance and confidence. Girls report lower self-efficacy in STEM despite performing as well as or better than boys.

Misconceptions about STEM careers. Girls perceive STEM careers as solitary, machine-focused, and disconnected from helping people. When fifth-grade girls are asked about engineering, most dismiss it as boring. But when asked whether they’d be interested in protecting rainforests, using DNA to solve crimes, or building cars that run on alternative fuels, their interest jumps dramatically. The problem isn’t the work — it’s how the work is described.

What actually works

Research identifies several strategies that close the gap: develop spatial skills through training, provide more information about what STEM careers actually involve, show how STEM benefits society, offer diverse role models, and demonstrate what scientists actually do. Game-based learning can deliver all of these simultaneously — without requiring a separate program, a volunteer pipeline, or singling anyone out.

How Tyto does it

Fighting stereotypes without flagging them. Tyto doesn’t market specifically to girls. There’s no pink version. Every student plays the same game — featuring diverse characters, showing STEM as collaborative and creative, and having students do science rather than learning about scientists. Research suggests that focusing on the activity rather than the identity actually increases girls’ persistence, likely by reducing implied stereotype threat.

Making social impact visible. In Tyto, students don’t learn about water pollution in the abstract — they investigate why animals are getting sick and figure out how to help. They don’t study statistics from a textbook — they analyze real data to solve real problems. The social relevance that research shows drives girls’ STEM interest is built into every quest.

Building belonging. Tyto is a multiplayer world where students collaborate to solve problems. This creates the sense of community and social belonging that research identifies as a key factor in girls choosing to stay in STEM.

Spatial skill development. Action video games have been shown to increase spatial skills as effectively as dedicated training programs, and those spatial skills generalize to STEM performance. Girls who spent significant time in video games during early adolescence were three times more likely to pursue STEM degrees.

What the data shows

Across our studies, we consistently find no statistically significant differences in game engagement across gender. Girls aren’t just participating — they’re engaging at the same level as boys, voluntarily extending their play, and reporting the same interest in learning more.

The scalability argument

Targeted outreach programs face a fundamental scaling problem. Girls Who Code — one of the most successful — has reached 185,000 girls in its existence. That’s less than 1% of girls in U.S. schools.

A game that every student plays during regular school hours, that embeds the strategies shown to support girls without targeting them, that runs on any device with a web browser — that reaches everyone. It doesn’t require volunteers, after-school time, or parents who know the program exists.

We’re not replacing targeted programs. We’re changing what happens during the school day so that fewer girls need a rescue intervention in the first place.