Project IT Girl

Project IT Girl Program

Project IT Girl is a Girlstart after-school program in Austin, Texas. The program consists of 44 high school girls (16 - 17 years old) who are learning how to use technology to make a difference in the world. In the 2007 - 2008 school year, students were given a real-world project with a philanthropic application: develop an educational game that can be distributed to children around the world via the One Laptop per Child program. Over 90% of the girls had no programming experience before this year.

The Fall 2007 semester curriculum introduced programming concepts and the basics of Python and Pygame as participants worked on a sample educational game about littering, affectionately known as "Don't Mess with Texas" (download the sample code). When participants learned a new programming concept, they immediately applied it to the sample game individually. Each week, participants applied new concepts that increased the functionality of the game, and by the end of the semester the game included a score board, title screen, and various trash and non-trash "sprites." Girls also individually designed a unique educational game (see the game design documents). Each girl picked a learning objective for her game that most interested her, from "practice fractions" to "spread awareness of AIDS testing."

During the Spring 2008 semester, IT Girls implemented their game designs using Python, Pygame, and several resources such as Game_templates.

Watch their progress!

• Main project page: http://www.girlstart.org/itgirl/year-two.html
• Wiki for game designs and project management: http://itgirl.wikispot.org/
• SVN repository of games, templates, and code recipes: http://itgirl.dreamhosters.com/itgirlgames/