University of Southern Indiana Offers ‘Girls Who Code Club’ to Middle & High School Students to Close STEM Gender Gap

Judging a Science Fair

Last month, I had the honor of judging a middle school science fair at Castle North Middle School. It was really fun to go through and look at all the projects, though judging turned out to be much harder than I anticipated. I was given a rubric and had to evaluate each project and score each section. The science behind many of the projects was impressive. I even had to ask the teacher in charge to turn off the country music they had playing in the gym so I could focus on reading the projects, scoring accurately, and writing notes.

Gender Roles in Science

One thing that stood out to me was how many of the projects reflected traditional gender roles, both in content and presentation. And there's nothing wrong with that. Students had the freedom to choose topics that interested them and were encouraged to design their display boards in a way that represented both themselves and their subject matter. As a judge, I had to be mindful of my own assumptions, making a conscious effort to say “this student’s presentation” rather than guessing the creator’s gender.

However, most of the projects didn’t lean strongly in either direction. And with both 7th and 8th graders participating, neither gender dominated the total number of entries.

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Things Are Different

It made me reflect on my own school days. In high school, I had a chemistry teacher who divided the class by gender. Boys studied the chemistry of rockets, while girls learned the chemistry of baking. When I asked if we had a choice, he quickly shut me down with “no.”

Back in the Nineties, hardly anyone questioned things like this, except my very outspoken mom. I knew if I told her, she’d have me switched to the rocket class in no time. But at the time, it didn’t feel worth the battle. All my friends were in the baking group, and I actually enjoyed baking, so I let it go.

Women in STEM

According to aauw.org, "Women make up only 34% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college." And wgu.edu stated that, "In computer science, the gender gap is much larger. Women make up just 18 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 30 percent of master’s degrees, and 20 percent of the doctorate degrees. And what’s worse, these statistics have gone down since 1997, when 27 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in computer science were awarded to women." WGU goes on to report that there's such a large gender gap because there are very few female role models in a STEM role and sexism in STEM environments is still a huge issue.

So, when my chemistry teacher forced the girls to learn the chemistry of baking, he basically said, "You belong in the kitchen. Don't ever forget that."

Guess what, Mr. M. It's 2025 and girls can do anything! And USI has taken a positive step toward getting more girls involved in STEM - specifically coding.

Girls Who Code Club

According to a press release from USI:

USI’s Girls Who Code club was first started in the Fall of 2018 under the direction of faculty advisor Dr. Srishti Srivastava, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Computer Science. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the club became dormant until it was revived at the beginning of the 2023 Fall Semester. The Girls Who Code national organization was founded as a small club by Reshma Saujani in 2012 and has now grown to more than 580,000 members worldwide.

Growing the Club

I had no idea it was offered in our community until my friend Stacy posted that her daughter is involved in the program and invited others in the community to join them.

Join Today

Meetings are held on Wednesdays February 5 - April 16 from 5:00 -6:00 p.m. in BEC 2001 in the Business & Engineering Center on USI's campus.