By visiting local middle schools and introducing technology and coding to young female students, the Teach Girls Tech Club has had an increase in new members during the last two years.

 According to president Ava Saydam, the Teach Girls Tech. Club was made to inspire middle school girls and elementary girls in pursuing STEM related fields as a career. 

Members of the club have visited the middle schools in the past, holding various STEM-related activities. 

“There are around 15 girls in the club,” freshman Carleigh Cramp said. Cramp who recently joined the club. “We travel to different schools,” Cramp said.

The clubs visited Indian Crest Middle School on November 15, Indian Valley Middle School on November 17 and Souderton Charter School Collaborative on November 18.

For this particular activity, members showed the students how to code interactive games using a micro:bit.

According to treasurer Lauren McClure, the club holds about two or three activities every year when they go to the schools.

“We run either a programming or coding activity and then we talk about what kind of careers they could do that are male-dominated,” McClure said.

 McClure said she thinks of herself as someone the younger girls look up to. “I think it’s really nice because as a middle school girl I would have really liked somebody come from the high school, and someone whose closer to my age show me that they are passionate about what they are doing,” McClure said. 

One of the club’s main goal is to get more females interested in male-dominated fields

 “When you look at the numbers between men and women in those fields it’s a big difference,” Saydam said. “It’s really important that we have an equal balance of men and women so we get all perspectives and equal representation.”

According to McClure, stereotypes developed for younger girls play a large role in preventing them from pursuing STEM-related careers.

“Girls are kind of taught from a young age to be involved in more nurturing jobs like a nurse or doctor” McClure said. According to McClure, girls also tend to see the fact that coding and the use of technology is seen as “geeky”or “nerdy”.

With more equal numbers of men and women working in the same job fields, McClure believes that this will increase efficiency and ideas.

“When you have more diversity, people work better together, and there are better ways to come up with ideas,” McClure said.

According to Cramp, she found out about the club during the club fair. Cramp also mentioned the fact that not a whole lot of people are in the club. The club is hoping more students will join in the future.

“We’re looking for more underclassmen to join,” Saydam said.