Last month, seven of our WKC girls participated in a Girls in Gaming one-day conference at Sisler High School. This program is run by a UofM Faculty of Education professor Reynold Redekopp who is trying to promote the field of computer science to female high school students.
People in the industry have identified a disproportionate amount of females in STEM fields, but especially in computer science. The goal of GIG is to bring like-minded high school girls in Manitoba together once a month to learn about the different fields they might work in if they take computer science in high school. Dr. Redekopp aims to bring in different presenters from the industry in Winnipeg (and beyond sometimes) to discuss what they do. For example, in September we met Sara Wilde who has an undergraduate degree in fine arts, but then went on to do a diploma at Red River College on character creation and development in the video game industry. She told us about her path leading to her career today but also how important it is for girls to be involved in designing characters in video games because they provide a more realistic/diverse view of female body image. It is hearing things like this from a female in the industry that really ‘hits home’ with some of our girls.
In the afternoon the girls participated in an activity to compliment what we discussed in the morning. On this first day we learned about the computer program Blender which allows students to create their own 3D pictures (i.e. characters)- a program that someone like Sara might use in her industry. The girls got to play around with the program in the computer lab at Sisler High School. Overall it was a great day and a fantastic learning experience for some of our WKC girls, and we are excited to host the next one-day conference here at West Kildonan Collegiate!  Written By: Sacha Wilson, Teacher