GirlTECH

In response to a serious shortage of women in computer science and information technology, GirlTECH works to promote the participation of girls and women through K-12 student and teacher programs, university student admission and retention programs, and national outreach and awareness efforts.

TeacherTECH, the K-12 teacher professional development program began in Houston in 1995. Through NSF’s Education, Outreach, and Training Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT-PACI), TeacherTECH is now in five cities- Houston, Boston, San Diego, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. TeacherTECH’s goals are

• To equip teachers with knowledge and strategies that will encourage all students’ full participation in computer technology, especially in scientific computing.
• To enable teachers to effectively use and produce web resources that support student learning.

StudentTECH, the K-12 student support program works with Houston and Aldine Independent School Districts to promote high levels of science and mathematics achievement. Examples of activities include:

Drew Academy in Aldine sponsors the GirlTECH Engineering Class, an elective engineering course designed to give girls an appreciation for opportunities open to them in science, engineering, and technology.

Over 500 K-12 students are hosted by CEEE at Rice for college awareness programs throughout the year.

CSters, a new Rice University initiatives to increase participation of women in its Computer Science, works on admissions and retention as well as a high school program to motivate girls' interest in Computer Science.

This three-year project is a mentoring and support program to enhance the interest and persistence of female students in pre-college computer science. By working with computer science teachers, students, and counselors from eight Houston ISD high schools, our aim is to improve the quality of instruction and the numbers of females enrolled in computer science classes. This should give these girls sufficient high-quality exposure to computing so they can make informed decisions about whether to pursue computer science as a college major and a life career, and will hopefully will provide a successful model for improving similar situations nationwide.

The goals of CS-CAMP are to:

• Prepare high school girls so they will succeed with confidence and enthusiasm in computer science courses;

• Increase girls' admission and retention in pre-college computer science courses, and

• Improve the climate and instructional experiences for girls in high school computer classes.

This is a planning grant to develop a comprehensive program designed to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who are excited, motivated, and well-prepared to enter engineering university majors and to complete those majors to graduation.

The goals of Engineering Bridges are to develop a plan that will:

• Prepare underrepresented minority high school students so they will succeed with confidence and enthusiasm in university science and engineering courses;
• Inform, excite, and motivate underrepresented minority high school students toward engineering careers; and
• Increase underrepresented minority students' admission and retention in university engineering majors.

The planning grant will involve three sets of teams to Brainstorm, Design, and Write a proposal for the purpose of implementing such a program in Houston. Rice will hold four day-long planning meetings, to look at the needs of Houston schools, along with best practices across the nation. Participants will include engineering and education faculty, cognitive scientists, learning specialists, teachers, administrators, engineers from industry, etc. Following each of the planning meetings, the Design team will rework the ideas from the meetings, generating lists of questions and ideas to explore. These will be passed on to the Writing Team, which will incorporate the thoughts and ideas from each of the other teams into a final document, to be submitted for potential funding and implementation by the end of the year.