TY - GEN
T1 - Girls and Technology – Insights from a Girls-Only Team at a Reengineered Educational Robotics Summer Camp
AU - Pedersen, B.
AU - Larsen, Jorgen
AU - Nielsen, Jacob
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - In this paper, we present the results from a case study on an annual extra-curricular summer camp, in which participants (n = 126) engaged in STEM and Computational Thinking activities, facilitated through the usage of the micro:bit microcontroller platform. The camp was a reengineered version of an annual summer camp held by Teknologiskolen; a Danish non-profit organisation offering weekly classes in technology. The focus of the reengineering was to increase the number of girls participating in the camp. This was attempted by creating a girls-only team, which employed highly contextualised projects and had an emphasis on using everyday materials, like cardboard, paint and glue. The result was a significant increase in the number of participating girls and on their attitude towards technology, which at the end of the camp, matched that of the boys. Based on the results, we argue that the girls-only team was the main reason for the higher number of participating girls, while the change in attitude was due to the highly contextualised projects and selection of materials.
AB - In this paper, we present the results from a case study on an annual extra-curricular summer camp, in which participants (n = 126) engaged in STEM and Computational Thinking activities, facilitated through the usage of the micro:bit microcontroller platform. The camp was a reengineered version of an annual summer camp held by Teknologiskolen; a Danish non-profit organisation offering weekly classes in technology. The focus of the reengineering was to increase the number of girls participating in the camp. This was attempted by creating a girls-only team, which employed highly contextualised projects and had an emphasis on using everyday materials, like cardboard, paint and glue. The result was a significant increase in the number of participating girls and on their attitude towards technology, which at the end of the camp, matched that of the boys. Based on the results, we argue that the girls-only team was the main reason for the higher number of participating girls, while the change in attitude was due to the highly contextualised projects and selection of materials.
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-82544-7_12
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-82544-7_12
M3 - Article in proceedings
SN - 9783030825430
T3 - Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
SP - 119
EP - 133
BT - Robotics in Education
A2 - Merdan, Munir
A2 - Lepuschitz, Wilfried
A2 - Koppensteiner, Gottfried
A2 - Balogh, Richard
A2 - Obdržálek, David
PB - Springer
T2 - 13th International Conference on Robotics in Education, RiE 2022
Y2 - 27 April 2022 through 29 April 2022
ER -