Dec 19, 2016
By Victoria Grdina
Last Saturday a group of Computer Science and Engineering students and members of Computing for All helped the Girl Scouts of Nebraska learn computing concepts in a new way.
The Girl Scouts spent a few hours at the Nebraska Union at the “Girl Scouts CS Unplugged” event, where they engaged in various computing activities—none of which involved using actual computers.
The girls engaged in instructional (and pirate-themed) activities designed to teach them how to think like a computer. Exercises included card games, using binary to decode a secret message, and giving group leaders specific sandwich-making directions—much like a user would instruct a computer to perform a task.
Student mentors for the event included Rebecca Dahlman, Melanie Powell, Allison Buckley, Bridget Bailey, and Sydney Goldberg. All five student mentors are Computer Science and Engineering students and members of Computing for All, a chapter of ACM-W committed to increasing diversity within technology.
Dahlman said this event supported Computing for All’s mission and introduced the Girl Scouts to opportunities in computing for the future.
“It’s good to show that there are diverse people like them in technology,” Dahlman said. “Showing them that we know this stuff and that they can do it too is really important.”