Lamar Computer Science Department chair Dr. Stefan Andrei, was the principal investigator in a project that hosted 6th and 7th grade girls this summer. Assisting Dr. Andrei were Dr. Sujing Wang (Computer Science) and Dr. Otilia Urbina (Education). The TechGirls camp was sponsored by Lamar University and the Texas Workforce Commission. The purpose of the camp was to teach girls more about computer technology including programming and robotics. Girls attending the camp were from both the 6th grade (shown below assembling parts for a robot) and 7th grade (shown below working with a floating robot).
Careers in computer programming and software development continue to grow and to command competitive salaries. Despite this growth, fewer women than men are entereing these fields. Dr. Andrei came up with the idea for the summer camp, in part, to address this problem.
To “Change the Equation,” a team of collaborative partners such as Southeast Texas School Districts, educational community agencies, and volunteers designed and implemented a coding/programming one-week summer day camp for 50 sixth-grade girls. The camp was intended to extend and complement Lamar University’s mission of establishing summer camps that targeted the national gap between males and females in computer science in order to introduce females to a technical learning environment that would expose them to coding/programming programs such as LEGO® Mindstorms® Robots, and Scratch coding software.
In addition, to expose girls to 21st century technology, a field trip was scheduled to NASA/Johnson Space Center Houston in Houston, Texas, which provided them with an unforgettable lifetime experience, including being introduced to female astronauts.
At the conclusion of the camp, the Lamar team gathered feedback from participants. The assessment was designed to gauge the students knowledge of technology before and after the camp. The data gathered indicated students increased their knowledge of 12 areas of technology by a factor of double in almost all cases and in some cases students knowledge increased nearly threefold (see chart below).
