Here is a wonderful camp by girls, for girls.
This project started last year by Savannah L., a super-awesome sophomore at Hillsboro High School in Washington County, Oregon. After being the only woman in her engineering class in high school, Savannah decided there must be a way to get more girls involved and so Girls Get Innovate Technology (IT) was born.
Savannah worked to recruit other girls like her who are interested in technology, many of whom she met through FIRST Robotics, and the girls themselves organized, coordinated and taught the curriculum for 5 days last summer. Forty middle school and high school girls explored innovative technology in a female only environment (with a few intrepid men who helped as advisers and one brave high school boy who taught some of the courses).
My daughter was lucky enough to be one of the staff, teaching soldering/circuitry and Robot C programming. Because the staff was girls like them, attendees felt comfortable and unintimidated by subjects they might normally shy away from in school, like engineering and robotics.
An interesting side note that the young staff observed was the curiosity of the campers about “girly things”, the increase in confidence they experienced over the week -long camp, and their willingness to bring up questions like “how can you be pretty and smart too?”
This year Girls Get IT will offer 3 sessions:
(All camps are 9:00am – 12:30pm at Hillsboro High School)
1st year camps (camp 1)
July 9-13 (Session 1)
July 16-20 (Session 2)
2nd year camp (camp 2)
July 23-27
The cost is $20 (includes snacks everyday!)
