Young girls from Marvine ES experienced a unique program this semester promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Tech Gyrls is a program hosted by the YWCA, where girls in fourth and fifith grades get to learn robotics by building and programming their own robots to move around the room. In addition to robotics, they learned about great women in the STEM field and gave presentations to their friends and families about those women. A total of nine girls participated in Tech Gyrls, and their presentations took place April 12 after school.

The program is supported through corporate community involvement. PPL is currently one of the corporate donors of the program and awarded Tech Gyrls $5,000 to help continue the program for future semesters. Lehigh University senior engineering student Grace Heidelberger taught girls the robotics programming after school, serving as a role model for these aspiring young female engineers.

Karen Wyant is the current Tech Gyrls coordinator at the YWCA and noted that during this semester the program ran at six different schools, varying each semester. One of those schools was Calypso ES, where the girls presented to their families April 13, the night before Marvine.

To close out the presentations, Stephanie Hnatiw, executive director at YWCA, spoke to the girls and their families about the importance of STEM and how women are working to be equally represented in the fields of mathematics and science. The organization plans to keep running the after-school program because it has been successful at empowering young girls and getting them excited about STEM.