2012 in review

Happy New Year! For YWiC the new year comes with new aspirations to inspire and influence more students than the previous year.  Here are some of the highlights from 2012!

Quick Statistics: 2006-2013

• Since 2006, YWiC has reached over 5,000+ students through roadshows, outreach events, career days, conferences, forums, community meetings, summer camps, competitions, and after-school clubs
• Participants from YWiC summer camps have matriculated at a rate of 100% from high school to college - 62% have declared a major in a STEM field
• 87% of YWiC alumni chose to attend New Mexico State University
• 48% of students reached have identified themselves as Hispanic
• YWiC has conducted 150+ workshops and sessions, provided 42 weeks of summer camp, funded 30 women to conferences, and sponsored 23 teams in competitions

Expanding Your Horizons Conference

In February, YWiC hosted the first EYH Conference at NMSU. Thirty middle school students, grades 6th - 8th, participated in the Saturday event. The day included a keynote speech by Dr. Patty Lopez from Intel, 10 total workshops (7 options across two time sessions), 18 speakers/presenters, and a Career Panel. The self-identified ethnicity responses reflect that of the 30 attendees, 18 students were Hispanic, 10 students were White, 1 student was African American, and 1 student was American Indian.

NM SuperComputing Challenge

In the 2011-2012 school year, YWiC mentored 3 all-female teams that included 11 high school students and 3 middle school students from both Las Cruces Public Schools and Gadsden Independent School District. Our students did great, and even racked up some awards! The team awards included Best Presentation and Best Team Work. Additionally, 5 of the 6 competing seniors earned scholarship awards ranging from $500-$2000!

NM Chapter of the National Girls Collaborative Project

NMSU/YWiC was chosen to serve as the convening organization for the NM NGCP project. NM is now among the 23 other collaborative projects that facilitate collaboration of organizations. "The vision of NGCP is to bring together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics" (http://www.ngcproject.org/about-ngcp).

High School Summer Camp

The 1st 2012 high school summer camp was held June 4 - 29. 21 female students came to NMSU and enjoyed fun activities, awesome curriculum, and even earned dual-credit enrollment for college. The carefully tailored curriculum included the use of Alice, CS Forensics, LilyPad Arduino, NXT Mindstorm Lego Robotics, AppInventor, 3D Spatial Visualization Training, Core Concepts and CS Unplugged, Teambuilding, and open lab for project work. 

The 2nd high school summer camp was held July 5 - 14, and was a collaborative effort with GUTSyGirls. The curriculum had students learning programming topics through StarLogo TNG, HTML/Website Development, LilyPad Arduino, and NXT Mindstorm Lego Robotics. This was the first camp of it's kind: 12 students participated in this 9-day overnight, residential camp. Sponsors included NSF, NMSU, Santa Fe Institute, Google, UNM, New Mexico Tech, and the Supercomputing Challenge. 

Middle School Summer Camp

The 2012 middle school summer camp was conducted in collaboration with GUTSyGirls. In previous camps, students were introduced to Scratch programming, PicoCricket robotics, Storytelling Alice, and a Wii Smart Board activity. This year, 32 camp participants mastered programming concepts in StarLogo TNG. Each camper completed daily projects that culminated in one large final project for 12 groups.

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

Six YWiC Research Assistants, one YWiC Program Coordinator, three undergraduate students, and one LCPS Representative travelled to Baltimore, MD for the 2012 GHC conference. YWiC presented two posters in the student poster session. We had a blast! To  read more about our experience at GHC read our blogpost HERE.

NM Celebration of Women in Computing / NM Girls Collaborative Kickoff

YWiC and the NMSU CS department were responsible for hosting this fabulous conference. A total of 171 participants made the conference a huge success! Attendees included students, faculty members, researchers, school administrators, counselors, teachers, industry representatives, informal educators, and non-profit affiliates. Additionally, 24 institutions and 8 states were represented. The conference was comprised of great STEM and research talks, a student and profesional panel, and even a PicoCricket workshop!