Digital Divas, an after-school program with the aim of engaging girls in STEM education, wrapped up its summer e-design session last month. Thirty girls, ages 11 to 13, learned about circuits, design, and coding, applying their skills to fashion accessories and paper products.

The e-design course follows three tracks. On the e-fashion track, girls learn how to use conductive materials as a base for fashion design, creating light-up accessories and jewelry with LED lights. The second track, the e-paper track, shows girls how to create paper products that light up, such as greeting cards. The goal is for the girls to progress in their skills, eventually creating paper products that play music and tell stories. The third track--coding--also builds upon these skills as participants get older.

“The microprocessors that we use are very basic in sixth grade, and develop as we follow the girls through eighth grade,” said Asia Roberson, Project Manager for the program. “Eventually, they’ll start to learn the basics of coding, and we’re hoping to move into robotics by the time eighth grade comes around.” Robotics examples include jewelry boxes that lock with a code or robots that can tell girls when someone entered the room.

A spinoff of the Digital Youth Network (DYN), Digital Divas started three years ago when founder Dr. Nicole Pinkard realized girls weren’t accessing technology in the same way as boys. “They didn’t want to just program or play different games, and boys were more aggressive and vocal in those classes,” Roberson explained. “So Dr. Pinkard tried to find activities that gave an alternative view of what tech integration, science, and engineering look like.” Organizers conducted focus groups to design a program girls would be interested in attending, and created a drop-in center where girls could come and go as they pleased while pursuing different tracks.

Digital Divas was awarded a National Science Foundation grant this year, and DYN is measuring the program’s impact and how girls are pursuing STEM education by tracking girls entering sixth grade and following them through eighth grade.

“We’re starting to see impact already from the first year,” Roberson said. Girls have asked for their portfolios so they can get high school credit for experiments done in the workshops, and a few even came back as junior mentors for the summer program.  Roberson says she hopes more girls can come back as mentors in the future. “We brought one student, Katelyn Hutchison back this year, and she’s going to be a sophomore at Walter Payton so she’s not much older than the girls, and she was telling them that there are things they’ll learn and start to see popping up in high school science classes, so they should pay attention because this is information they’ll actually be able to use.”

The program has also had an impact on teachers and faculty of surrounding schools. “A student from our spring break club took her projects to school, and the principal actually reached out and asked us how to get a program at that school to make sure other girls are learning the same skills,” Roberson said. “There are many stories like this and the success is really spreading.”

Digital Divas will continue with after school programs during the school year, as well as programs during winter break, spring break, and summer.

Know a girl that would be interested in Digital Divas? Want to learn more?

Please contact Asia Roberson at aroberson@digitalyouthnetwork.org.

Check out Digital Divas in the Chicago Tribune