BERKELEY -- Daughters, share the wealth. A University of California, Berkeley group holding "Take Our Daughters to Work" day April 23 has decided to follow up a week later with a parallel day just for boys. The new "Take Our Sons to Work Day" will be held Thursday, April 30 by UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design.

"We had a lot of disappointed boys last year," said Sheila Dickie, director of alumni relations and public relations for the college. "On one hand, we didn't want to exclude anyone. On the other hand, we didn't want to take any attention away from the girls. So we're doing two separate days."

UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design offers one of the nation's top ranked academic programs in architecture, city planning and landscape architecture.

Each year it puts on a well attended Daughter's Day, offering girls a chance to build bird houses with architects, design shoebox gardens with landscape architects and map their neighborhoods with city planners.

The new "Take Our Sons to Work" Day on April 30 will feature a similar program, plus a demonstration of the UC Berkeley wind tunnel, where wind research is performed.

Daughters Day was invented six years ago by the Ms. Foundation for Women "as a concrete way to support girls through adolescence - a time when many girls lose their self-confidence and focus on their appearances, not their abilities," according to the foundation.

Some scholars have claimed the day should be reserved solely for girls. Others say the emphasis on girls has gone too far and point out that boys are more at risk for anti-social behavior and delinquency.

Many daughters who attended last year's events in Environmental Design plan to return.

"What I liked best doing there was to make and paint the bird house and also the clay models," said one five-year-old. "The other thing, it was fun to be with my mom and dad for a morning, so next year I want to do it again. It was also fun to squish the Oreos in the clay models."

This year, both Environmental Design's April 23 Daughters' day and April 30 Sons' day will begin with a welcome by the college's Assistant Dean Cyndee Clearwater at 9:15 a.m. in 170 Wurster Hall on the Berkeley campus followed by many other activities including:

• Build a bird house, 10-11 a.m., with Denise Rush, construction shop manager, 277 Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley.
  
• Design a garden in a shoebox, 11-12 a.m., with landscape architect graduate students Nashua Kalil and Jane Mark, 2nd floor inner courtyard, Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley.