Girl Scouts receive funding for Girls Are IT! program

Girl Scouts, Hornets' Nest Council, has recently received a grant from the Arts and Science Council to continue the successful Girls Are IT! program. Girl Scouts recognizes that women are significantly underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math and has made these areas a significant focus of its leadership program for girls.

The Girls Are IT! program incorporates a mobile technology bus on which girls participate in four different programs using technology that appeals to their interest in community, creativity and social benefit. The four technology concepts historically offered on the "technobile" include HTML programming, Wireless Sensors and Robotics, Assistive Technologies and Nanotechnology. These concepts are introduced through a series of two-hour, hands-on trainings taking place on the classroom-style bus. After evaluating these four modules and the need to expand current programming, Girl Scouts, Hornets' Nest Council staff and a team of volunteers created fourteen new classes that complimented the existing modules. These include Money, Money, Money!, Uniquely Me! Studio 2B, Inventions and Inquiry, Artists Excel, Desktop Publisher, DNA Fingerprinting, Recycle and Smog City, Computer Fun, Food Power, Let's Get Cooking, San Diego Zoo Virtual Field Trip, Cookies County & Computer Smarts, Magic School Bus Series and Point Click and Go.

The Girl Scout Leadership model is the road map for determining what a girl will learn and how she will be affected. Through this funding, girls will continue to discover their personal best and prepare for a positive future, connect with others in an increasingly diverse world and take action to solve problems and improve their communities.

For more information about the Girl Scouts, Hornets' Nest Council, please visit the Web site at www.hngirlscouts.org or call 704-731-6500.

Girl Scouts, Hornets' Nest Council, serves more than 15,000 girls with the help of 5,000 adult volunteers throughout Anson, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Rowan, Stanly, Union and York (SC) counties.