We Can Code IT Mentors Northeast Ohio 8th Grade Girls

On Tuesday, December 9th, We Can Code It mentored girls at IT’s For Girls, an event in which 8th grade girls from school districts in Northeast Ohio get together to participate in STEM projects and meet professional women in tech fields.

The annual day-long event provides middle school girls with information and incentive to pursue their interests in STEM-related subjects and IT careers. The  program is presented by and takes place at Cuyahoga Valley Career Center.

It includes six different STEM activities for the girls, including 3D printing and math activities. The kids also learn a lot about the importance of networking. The girls worked with We Can Code IT and 19 other women from Northeast Ohio tech businesses by asking networking questions and learning about career options in technology.

The students watched a slideshow featuring women tech company CEOs. Seeing examples of women to role model themselves after, rather than the male-dominated images they typically see, can help girls understand that tech fields are attainable to them.

We Can Code IT also mentored during the luncheon portion of the programming. We told the inquisitive girls at our table about computer science as a career choice, told them about making games in Scratch and Blockly, and asked a lot of questions about their interests and possible career paths to help guide them in the right direction.

If you’d like to introduce a girl you know to computer science, you may want to show them Scratch, a programming language developed at MIT for kids.