In recent years the enrolment in colleges and universities has become balanced in gender demographics, with a trend for more female students than male students. However, in computer science the numbers of female students, especially in graduate degrees are dropping. The goal of this project is to motivate the high school girls to study more science and math in their time in high school, and thus to have them better prepared and more motivated to pursue a computer science degree when they attend college or to select a computer science or information technology career.
This exploratory project plans to have fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls (some of whom are Native Americans) exposed to various computer science activities during two week-long summer workshops extended with further mentoring during the school year. Curriculum for the workshop includes a brief introduction to computer science, principles of programming, and multiple hands-on activities with robots and computers (e.g., building web pages; creation of a database for their own music files, etc.). In addition, local professional women in the computer science-related areas are involved in the program, so that they can interact with the girls and when the weeks on campus are over, the women act as mentors during the next two school years. The project is carried out with support from the local high schools in Bozeman, Montana.
One of the goals of this exploratory project is to identify the types of activities that are most successful in motivating and retaining the interest of young women, especially the Native Americans, in computer science studies and careers. The computer science researchers involved in this project are collaborating with education evaluation researchers in designing the activities and analyzing the project's impact. The results will be published and presented at relevant computer science and educational conferences.
The project has significant potential for broad impact nationally by providing a methodology for increasing the number of women who choose computer science or a closely related field as their major in their academic education or career. The project web site (www.cs.montana.edu/defrance/WorkshopMentoring/) will provide further information as the project proceeds.
