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Princeton Day School Announces 'Girls Who Code Club' in Middle School

Princeton –Princeton Day School is pleased to offer a new after-school activity in the Middle School this year: the Girls Who Code Club.

Girls Who Code (GWC) (www.girlswhocode.com) is a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering sectors. With support from Twitter, Google, GE, eBay, and AT&T, Girls Who Code initiatives educate, inspire, and equip girls with the skills to be successful in computing careers.

The club was brought to PDS by Online Communications Manager and PDS parent Evan Thomas, who was interested in finding coding opportunities for her own daughters after taking an online programming course through Coursera and the University of Michigan. Ms. Thomas discovered GWC online and lobbied to bring it to PDS. She is now serving as club advisor with MS Technology Coordinator Jamie Atkeson, and has helped match the PDS group with Amy Tai from Princeton University's Graduate School of Computer Science.

Last week, seventeen enthusiastic Middle School Girls gathered in the PDS computer lab to work their way through 40 hours of computer science curriculum that will culminate in a coding project of each student’s choosing. Coming up, the girls and Ms. Tai will dive into their first coding challenge, drawing shapes and creating generative art with Scratch.

In addition to the new Girls Who Code Club, Princeton Day School also offers after-school computer science classes in Scratch and Lego Robotics, as well as a range of STEAM-focused curricular programs for students in grades PreK-12.