Girl Scouts Episodic Volunteer Pilot for BPC

Girl Scouts Of The Usa, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) propose to pilot a Girl Scout Episodic Volunteer program (GSEV) that will engage the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) Directorate's Principal Investigators (PIs) in meaningful broadening participation in computing (BPC) activities. An "episodic volunteer" is a volunteer who works for short or reoccurring periods of time. As episodic volunteers, CISE PIs will work with local Girl Scout councils and Girl Scout adult volunteer troop leaders to deliver computational thinking, cybersecurity, and coding activities to Girl Scouts across the country, helping to build pathways to computationally-enabled Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers. The curricula for the GSUSA CS and computational thinking activities has been developed by GSUSA in collaboration with Code.org, CodeSpark, Cyber Innovation Center, Design Squad Global, the New York Academy of Sciences, SciStarter, Vidcode, and WGBH/Design Squad Global. This pilot will identify six local Girl Scout councils to test the Episodic Volunteer Model, providing opportunities to test the identified sourcing and engagement strategies. Specifically, the GSEV pilot will 1. Identify potential CS volunteers; 2. Develop training so that volunteers can effectively lead CS-related activities; 3. Identifying Girl Scout troops that need CS volunteers and mentors; 4. Test and refine a process to easily match and schedule the CS volunteers to work with the Girl Scout troop or event; and 5. Support delivery of the CS activities and badge work with girls. The six pilot councils will aim to recruit and engage at least 30 NSF-funded PIs to deliver Girl Scout CS content in person or virtually, and they will provide at least 20 instances of computer science program delivery by NSF-funded PIs (2-3 episodic volunteers per instance), including troop sessions or STEM events. GSUSA will conduct an evaluation in order to assess outcomes. This project has the potential to scale and reach 1.6 million Girl Scouts across the country. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.