February 19, 2019
moinschool at the district school Alter Teichweg
On 06.02.2019 the second round of project moinschool started at another school in Hamburg. moinschool has set the goal to inspire young girls for IT and to show them that technology is not only for boys. Especially during school time, when young people get information about their professional future and are shown their strengths and weaknesses, there are still big hurdles that prevent girls from getting interested in technical professions.
Our programming project for this semester
The moinschool team will teach programming to girls aged 13 and 14 in the 8th grade computer classes. The aim of the course is to build up a website in partner work. The girls will learn the basics of HTML and CSS and JavaScript. In addition important topics, like Internet Security will be addressed. The program is rounded off with our “unconscious bias” workshop and further excursions to Hamburg companies that are partners of the moinworld community.
The first meeting: Getting to know each other
At the beginning of the first class there was a little game where everyone introduced herself. The girls reported that they had little or no experience with IT. Together we discussed where they come in contact with IT topics in their private lives. We quickly found what we were looking for. Whether news websites, streaming services or social media - all these areas are related to IT. We have also collected initial ideas for possible websites. Finally, the girls divided into groups and each group dig into the biography of a woman who has written the history of IT to report to the others exciting aspects of the lives of these role models.
The second lesson: Design - Build - Test Workshop
On our second lesson we made a group game with the girls about Computational Thinking. The students designed and built boats out of aluminium foil, which should carry as many coins as possible floating on the water as a test. Afterwards the aim was to optimize the design in a second round so that the second boat would carry more coins than the first. The aim was to use this task to develop solutions to problems and to learn some basic programming concepts. The girls also learned how important teamwork is. All in all, this was a nice start for the second round of moinschool. We are looking forward to working on many exciting and important topics with the girls in this course and of course have a lot of fun while doing it.
About moinschool:
Our new project Moinschool started in September 2018. We have noticed that with our programming classes, , conferences and meetings in Hamburg and Munich we reach many motivated women of different ages, but schoolgirls are still underrepresented. For this reason we started our school project moinschool this school year. For 12 weeks we offer a weekly course in which the students are introduced to programming in a playful way. The workshop is combined with a one-day Unconscious Bias Workshop, in which girls and boys are encouraged to discuss what we have already learned and internalised unconsciously about gender roles at an early age.
We will continue to keep you informed. In the meantime, feel free to contact us if you are interested in our program or if you would like to support us.