Teens making a difference: STEM Slumber Party for Scouting Gold Award

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 6:16pm
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Event Date: 
April 8, 2016 (All day)

With the computer science field many dominated by men as well as all careers in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) field, Whittell High School senior Kelsey Kjer is looking to change that.

For her Girl Scout Gold Award project, Kjer started a plan to have an annual sleepover for every girl at her school called the STEM GEMS (Girls Expanding Their Minds through STEM) Slumber Party. Joining Kjer were Jordyn Becker, Kate Krolicki, Tatum Libert, Madison Malone, Mary Sanchez, and Daria Sharon, all who volunteered to be mentors for the younger students. They are all seniors in the AP Computer Science and AP Environmental Science classes. Her teachers, Susan Van Doren and Madeline Cronk, were the adult mentors for the event.

About 40 girls showed up to the sleepover on April 8 to learn more about STEM and coding. They did activities such as coding with Scratch, watching movies, and going on a digital scavenger hunt. They were exposed to information about women in STEM fields, career opportunities, and the benefits of learning to code. Many were surprised when they learned about all the things females have invented. As freshman Madison Burch put it, “Women don’t get the credit they deserve for all the ideas they have created.”

Overall, the GEMS had a blast and didn’t get much sleep. “I had a lot of fun, but I went to sleep late,” said eighth-grader Kylie Thielmann.

The girls took a survey before and after the sleepover, and the results were astounding. Before, 23.3 percent of the girls said they planned on going into a STEM-related career, 43.3 percent said maybe, and 33.3 percent said no.

After the event, 47.6 percent said yes, 47.6 percent said maybe, and only 4.8 percent said no. They were also asked if they planned on taking a computer science class in the future. At first, 43.3 percent said yes, 36.7 percent said maybe, and 20 percent said no. After the slumber party those numbers changed to yes-85.7 percent, maybe-14.3 percent, not one girl said no.