In January I embarked on a new venture with a friend & colleague, Julie. We started a Girls Who Code club at Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta.
Girls Who Code is a nationwide non-profit which has a single mission: to close the gender gap in technology. After just six years, they have reached almost 90,000 girls in 50 states. Girls Who Code clubs focus on providing a friendly, encouraging and supportive space for 6th-12th grade girls to learn about computer science. The curriculum goes beyond learning “how to code”, and teaches the girls about teamwork, problem solving, and the process of designing, building and testing a product. This is achieved through a Computer Science Impact Project, which is conceived, planned and developed by the girls themselves.
As two females who spend most of their days coding, Julie and I were keen to show local girls the kind of places a small bit of computer science can take you. Anyone can set up and facilitate a Girls Who Code club within their community, and it seemed to align perfectly with our goals. As a facilitator, you are provided with a detailed curriculum and support network which is invaluable.
We started our club in January and are approaching our final week. It’s been a fun learning process for us all. It was the first time I’ve worked closely with a group of middle school students, and they have continued to impress me with their commitment to helping others and each other. In one of their first weeks they came up with these club guidelines:
They have been great about following these, as well as encouraging each other and providing supportive, but constructive feedback on each others work. The group embodied these guidelines in their choice of CS Impact Project: they chose to build a website which provides advice for other girls who are facing problems with friendship, family or school. It’s close to being finished – so more to follow!
Being involved in the club has been great. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the girls and watching them learn as the year has progressed. I’m excited to see the final website but, to me, the real achievement of the club girls has been the growth of the girls in terms of collaborations and new friendships.