Tech girls shine: Increasing commitment to diversity through outreach

In the spring of 2015, our STARS Computing Corps and the computer science department at Columbus State University (CSU) partnered with our student chapter of the ACM, and the Empowered Youth of Columbus (EYC), an after school program serving at-risk youth, to bring 3rd–5th grade girls and CSU student volunteers together for a day of computing. The Saturday event was designed to increase awareness of the shortage of women in computing and encourage a commitment to changing this for the future. We had 27 girls and nearly 30 volunteers participate in activities involving Scratch, TouchDevelop, Lego WeDo, and Kano computers. We administered surveys to the volunteers to measure changes in attitude and commitment. Although the majority of our volunteers were already aware of the shortage of women in computing, we did increase the level of concern about the shortage as well as the commitment to increasing the number of women in computer science and encouraging women to stay in computer science. Volunteers also provided feedback for improving future events. The event was partially funded by a seed grant we received from NCWIT.