Offering free education on fields in STEM to young girls, Teach Girls Tech aims to get more girls interested in studying and partaking in STEM.
Currently, there is a lack of girls in STEM-related fields, other than nursing.
According to the American Association of University Women, women only make up 34% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math. Knowing that computer science, along with engineering, are some of the highest paying jobs, this has grown as a concern for many.
Advisor Michael Olenick said the club started when one of his students saw the noticeable difference in how many men there were compared to women in her computer programming class.
“She crushed [computer programming] and then she went on and was in the class, sometimes with another girl or two,” Olenick said. “ She saw the need as well to get more young ladies interested in programming classes and STEM, in general.”
President Maria Souchet said she also noticed this same issue. She aims to get younger girls to branch out into other STEM fields as opposed to turning to nursing, due to the strong female presence that already exists within nursing.
“We teach girls because there is a clear imbalance in employment in the STEM field when it’s guys vs. women,” Souchet said. “Some people say men want to keep women out of the labor force and I just think it’s more that women aren’t taught to be interested in STEM as much, which is where we come in.”
During the club’s biweekly Thursday meetings, Souchet and the other girls decide on what activities they want to do with the younger girls in the district’s elementary and middle schools.
Vice president Avantika Manna is in charge of this year’s activity with one of the elementary schools.
According to Souchet, the club has two different curriculums planned for both the elementary and middle schoolers because “you wouldn’t want middle schoolers doing an activity for elementary schoolers.”
Switching roles with Souchet, Manna is now in charge of the meetings, ideas for activities and distributing responsibilities among her fellow club members.
“I’m currently working on organizing a couple of workshops at elementary schools,” Manna said. “It’s actually a marshmallow and straws activity.”
Manna recalls seeing activities like this being shown to her when she was in elementary school and thought they were “really cool and interesting” because they involved “creativity” since regular school doesn’t offer those chances as much.
Manna said that being in this club was a great opportunity for her, so she wanted to help other girls experience this, as well.