The amount of girls filling technology, math or science jobs is very low, as low as 10 percent in some cases. Normal West Girls Who Code is looking to improve these numbers. To do this, Girls Who Code will host a kindergarten through 8th grade night to teach young students the skill of coding.

Girls Who Code is an extracurricular club that teaches young girls, and despite the name, boys, too, the skill of coding. Coding is writing a code for computer programming. This club teaches about code and how to apply it. Using code, it’s possible to make things from websites to games to robots.

On December 9th, elementary and junior high students will come to West and be taught about what code is all about by high school students.  They will learn what code is, how to write it, and get to use it while programming robots among other activities. Girls Who Code plans to make learning how to code fun for the younger students.

The goal of the night is to improve the amount of girls in the industry, but also to show them the world of code. “It’s to expose elementary students and junior high students to computer science. Just to see how fun it is and get them excited about taking computer science classes,” said Ms. April Schermann, the Girls Who Code adviser.

This night is made possible for Girls Who Code by teacher Devin Wilson being awarded a grant.  “I had the opportunity to write a grant because I have less than ten years of experience teaching. I went to Schermann because she has good ideas and because girls are unrepresented in computer science.” Wilson was able to get the grant and the money to make this night possible.

The money, along with planning, high school volunteers, teacher volunteers, Girls Who Code members and willing participants allow for a night of learning and fun.  High school student, Riley Nichols (10) said, “Volunteering gives me leadership opportunity to learn myself as a leader and to influence young girls. Coding is a good thing to teach these students,” when asked about why she is volunteering.

Students will gain a new understanding of code which could spark an interest in a student. The more code gets exposed, the better chance Girls Who Code has to fix the low number of girls in computer science jobs.