It’s All-Girls Club and We’re Having Fun!

There is an existing stereotype about mathematician and scientist. They are socially awkward men who wear glasses.

Studies shown that from a young age, the image that emerged when children who are asked to draw mathematician or scientist was one of a male person dressed in a casual or formal fashion, with a formal hairstyle and, in some cases, wearing glasses. To be specific, girls were twice as likely to draw men as they were to draw women, while boys almost universally drew men, often in a lab coat.

These subconscious images of male mathematicians and scientists at the earliest ages may be one explanation why girls enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields at dramatically lower rates than boys.

Now, one of the things I personally wondered, how do we increase enthusiasm for girls to enter STEM field? One of the solution might be to introduce them to STEM during their development years through a program.

During December 23–28th 2019, I had the experience of being a mentor for Web and App Design Intermediary class for Winter Club Generation Girl. It was something me and my fellow partner, Nadia planned from a long time ago, from a time when we were rookies in Generation Girl Summer Club 2019. Summer Club was fun, and we cannot help thinking how awesome it would be for me and her to have our own class as mentors! So, when the registration opened, without further ado we registered and planned our class as mentors.

I was excited to become mentor, mainly because during my time as a rookie, I learned lessons that are not taught in schools, especially about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The class that I took is Robotics, which is just as impressive as it sounds. Me and Nadia learned about Mechanical Engineering with our mentor, Miss Jane, and applied it to setting our M-Bot. Along the way, we discussed about STEM, future schools and careers. It was insightful and empowering, as we learned that there are girls also trying to get into STEM field, be it Computer Science, Statistics or Biomedical Engineering majors. We were able to discuss our passion in STEM, and that is one of the most important things I brought into mind as a mentor.

So, first thing to do as a mentor is to prepare our lesson plan. It is basically a syllabus of the curriculum we want to teach for five days. In making a curriculum, the important things to consider are the time, the rookies and the final project. Our time is 5 days, it is not really enough time to cover the basics and have some advanced lessons. As we are Intermediary class, we have to be more advanced than the Basics class. So, we decided from the pretest on our first day that we will make the first and second day for covering the basics. For the actual Intermediate lesson, we planned that on the third day afterwards, while also developing the final project. We incorporated the passion for STEM that I want to discuss in these materials, so that they become more interested in pursuing STEM.

The next thing is to attend the mentors-volunteers meeting before the club, which is on 14th December 2019. There, we meet with our TA, kak Laras, and the mentors from the other class. We had a team huddle with other Web and App Design mentors to determine the boundary between Basic and Intermediate class.

On the actual week, we got everything planned and waiting to be executed. We made the materials in the form of Google Slides beforehand and we updated it D-1 to adjust to the materials the day before. We also added some additional materials in Figma and Google Docs.

During the week, we followed the design method called Design Sprint. We taught them the simplified steps of Design Sprint. First, it is Ideation, or finding the background problem. The rookies brainstormed ideas, and our class has became even more lively from the second day. The class ended for the day, and the discussion for initial design continues tomorrow.

The third day is time for crazy 8 and other sketching ideas. The girls were very creative, and they are able to pick which of the design ideas they want to use later on. We also supplemented lessons as they go, so the lessons are parallel to which stage of the design process they’re doing.

The fourth day is the design phase. We used Figma and a lot of templates are already made by the mentors. The rookies put a lot of thought and effort to it, even doing more work at home. During lunch, we had a discussion about STEm. The mentors ate with the rookies and share stories throughout. It was also a great place to socialize my major to high school students.

The last day is the presentation of the final project. Parents were invited to see the result of their hard work. The groups are all set, presentations are ready, and the result is amazing, especially considering they didn’t have any experience before this one week.

This may feel like only a week, but this is my way to increase enthusiasm for younger girls. We had fun, the girls have a summer club and it was a memorable experience in sharing my passion in STEM.

Visit https://www.generationgirl.org/ for more details regarding summer club.