GILBERT, AZ — The Gilbert Public School District recently held its first ever ‘GPS Girls STEMpowered’ event.
It’s the brainchild of the district’s Instructional Technology Coordinator Shawn Abele, who came up with the idea four years ago.
She tells ABC15, “We took a group of high school kids to an event, a girls' event, and it was 10 to 12 kids. When we were there, I looked around and I said like, 'we can do this.'”
Roughly 160 young girls from grades 5-12 were invited to participate in the hands-on building event.
Broken up into 16 teams, these young ladies had one day to collaborate in small groups while building a 16-hole mini golf course.
Abele said, “One of these kids, we might be changing their life today!"
Each team was given a Google Chromebook for coding, along with supplies to design and build their own golf hole.
Kacey Hanchett is a fifth grader from Burk Elementary School. She tells ABC 15, “I've always wanted to like engineer with this type of stuff. So this was like a dream for me.”
All of this offers girls in Gilbert an opportunity to stretch intellectually and build something innovative.
According to statistics, fewer women work in STEM-related industries than men.
And, Code.org finds there are more than 16,000 high-paying tech jobs in Arizona but only 1134 computer science graduates.
For Abele, this event is a dream come true.
A computer science graduate herself, she hopes this engaging, creative and exciting event will bring more young women into careers where female voices are desperately needed.
“Hopefully, we’ll all be able to learn from this and inspire more young women to get interested in becoming innovators of the future.”
