Broadening Participation in Computing

Extending Georgia Computes! expands the work done at Georgia Tech under the initial Georgia Computes! grant to several additional activities at Columbus State University. The mission of Georgia Computes! is focused on increasing the number and diversity of computing students in the state of Georgia by improving the computing education pipeline across the state of Georgia.

Our primary activities include:

• Attract girls into computing with activities in summer camps and after-school programs through Girls, Inc. and Girl Scouts.
• Host an annual regional First Lego League competition
• Offer summer camps to middle school and high school students.
• Offer in-service workshops for middle and high school teachers
• Provide on-line access to Georgia's new computer science teaching endorsement for in-service teachers.
• Encourage students in the university’s math and science education programs to add a. computer science teaching endorsement.

Project results include the following:

• Conducted 23 summer computing camps in 2010-2011, attended by 270 K-12 students. 27% were from underrepresented minorities and 25% were female. Over 700 students supported since 2006 with 26% female and 33% underrepresented minorities. 2012 will be the 7^th year for these camps.
• Hosted the regional First Lego League competition for the past three years with nearly 20 teams competing and nearly 500 people in attendance each year.
• Provided Training & Development of K-12 teachers through two one-day and a one-week workshops.
• Developed and received approval to offer the Computer Science Teacher endorsement program.

For further information, please contact:

Wayne Summers PI (wsummers@ColumbusState.edu ). The Project Team includes: Professors Shamim Khan, Rodrigo Obando, Lydia Ray, and Chris Whitehead.

funding provided by the National Science Foundation under grant # BPC -09-40495