Bar Harbor Students Are Coding the Future—And Changing Who Gets to Build It
Snacks, Support, and Python: Girls Who Code Creates a Welcoming Tech Space on MDI
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.
BAR HARBOR—Since 2017, former MDI High School student Sirohi Kumar has been preparing MDI girls for the future through a club about coding.
Though Kumar and former club advisor Megan McOsker both left the high school, the club specifically about coding? That future? Others have picked up the gauntlet and the Girls Who Code Club? It’s still going strong.
“My involvement came later after a conversation with 15-year-old Sirohi at a going-away party for some colleagues. Sirohi was way more interesting than all of the boring adults there,” Sue McClatchy said. McClatchy is the bioinformatician & research program manager at the Jackson Laboratory.
The bioinformatician and high school student talked and talked.
“We talked about women in computing history from Ada Lovelace to the female programmers during the second world war. We talked about the gender shift once personal computers became widely available in the '80s and how computing became a male-dominated field thereafter,” McClatchy recalled.
But it didn’t stop there.
“Sirohi emailed me a few days later to say she was on a mission to make AP computer science classes at MDI high school 50% female by the time she graduated there. My first thought was ‘this is not a normal teenager.’ My second thought was ‘no matter how busy or stressed you are, you can't say no to a teenager on a mission to change her local community.’”
So, they started the club at the Jesup Library in 2019 as a local chapter of the national Girls Who Code organization.
“Sirohi recruited students from island schools, put the word out, and organized the club in general. My most important role was as provider-of-snacks. This is still my most important role,” McClatchy said.
Back in 2020, the club was featured in the JAX newsletter and there Kumar told Sarah Baker about her computer science class at MDI High School.
“It's a class of 21 students and I was the only freshman and one of four girls. I was floundering. I would've benefited from having someone outside who I could have talked to or had the confidence to talk to people in the class and say, ‘I don't know what this is. Can you help me?’” Kumar had said.
THE GOAL
Kumar told Baker in 2020, “Computer science is a driving force in our everyday lives, and impacts us in more ways than we think. I don't go a single day when I don't have to open up my laptop and do homework. My summer job was scooping ice cream. We didn't have a register, but an iPad with an app that controlled how payments were made and the change that we gave. My hours got logged on an app that someone designed. My salary was distributed through a program online. So even the most simple jobs you can think of are now connected to computer science. Ultimately, computer science gives you an understanding of the world, a basis for problem solving and a head for dissecting problems that you can't really get anywhere else.”
Girls who Code is an international organization that believes that “the future is braver, better, and brighter with girls.”
The organization has been working since 2012 to get more girls, women, and nonbinary individuals into tech. So far, the organization has reached approximately 700,000 students.
It’s recently announced a five-year strategic plan to expand that reach to those groups to 5 million by 2030.
“It’s a mission to spark innovation, foster sisterhood, and shape the leaders who will use technology for good. With emerging technologies reshaping our world, Girls Who Code is meeting the future head-on by preparing our students for in-demand jobs in AI, cybersecurity, and more. As tech accelerates, we help our students meet the moment and thrive in the tech jobs of tomorrow,” the campaign states.
A little closer to home, the organization, has met Kumar’s goal initial goal.
“I can speak from my experience in the AP Computer Science Class that it is now evenly split between genders (at least for the past two years of my knowledge). I am hoping this trend continues in future classes, but for now, I am just happy to have taken the class with a diverse group of people and to have felt like I belonged in that environment,” said Taylor Ehrlich.
FOSTERING COMMUNITY
“My favorite thing about Girls Who Code is the community that it fosters. The club provides a supportive environment of friends and trusted mentors that is hard to find in other places. It makes me proud to be involved in running a club like this. Although niche, I have seen it impact the right kids who otherwise would not have a place to explore this interest further,” Erhrlich said.
Meetings begin with the club members catching up on their week and chatting. There are snacks in a pretty laid back environment.
Girls decide if they want to use block or code programming in Python.
Next, they follow instructions that teach the basics of a language of their choice. When they have that down, they’ll move onto making a chatbot or their own game.
It’s learning and snacking and working together.
McClatchy agreed, “The best thing about Girls Who Code is that it provides a warm and welcoming place for girls to explore and practice coding when they might otherwise think they don't belong there. The club is theirs and lets them know that they belong in coding.”
That gender gap has been changing, McClatchy said.
“About 22% of computer science degrees were earned by women in 2022, far below the 37% that earned them in the early 1980s. That was when personal computers first entered people’s homes. Since the early 1980s and the advent of personal computers, the tech gender gap has widened,” she said.
Ehrlich has noticed a gender gap, too.
“I can only speak from the small taste I have been exposed to in the very large computer science world. I definitely notice programming being more male-dominated from an early age, starting as early as elementary school level, where toys like robots are stereotyped as being associated with one gender over the other,” Ehlrich said. “This environment makes it harder for girls who might be interested in working with robots to get involved in something they may feel they are being judged for, because as the only girl in a group of boys.”
According to Girls Who Code, “In 1995, 37% of computer scientists were women. Today, it’s only 24%. The percent will continue to decline if we do nothing. We know that the biggest drop off of girls in computer science is between the ages of 13 and 17.“
THE CLUB’S IMPORTANCE
“It’s important for girls to know that coding is for them and for them to feel welcome. If you look at after-school coding or robotics clubs at schools around the country, you will find mostly boys there. This doesn’t mean that girls aren’t welcome, however, there’s a not-so-subtle signal that coding or robotics are not for girls. There needs to be girl-forward clubs in order to make them feel welcome,” McClatchy said.
They both said that the club’s responsibilities are shared pretty evenly with no one person is taking charge more than the other. Girls Who Code brings a wide variety of learners, they said, some of whom are more independently driven and others who prefer to have more guidance from them, so in some ways, the girls are in charge of themselves and we are here for support along the way.
JOINING
Anyone is welcome to join with an interest in coding, but they encourage the participation of girls, as the club is focused on closing the gender gap in technology. Kids in grades 6-12 are welcome.
You can email girlswhocodebarharbor@gmail.com to sign up or learn more.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Follow us on Facebook. And as a reminder, you can easily view all our past stories and press releases here.
If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here (about how you can give) or here (a direct link), which is the same as the button below.
If you’d like to sponsor the Bar Harbor Story, you can! Learn more here.
This is great! I know a “girl who codes”, she tried to teach me but now she is busy learning more, at college:).
Do you know of any similar programs for those of us at the other end of the age spectrum? Octogenarians Who Code”?