Daisy Troop’s donations focus on increasing girls’ computer coding interest
SHELTON — A local Daisy Troop is hoping to spread its interest in computer coding to other girls their age.
Shelton’s second year Girl Scout Daisy Troop 60670 — comprised of 16 local firstgrade girls — donated coding books and women in coding books to Plumb Memorial Library Saturday as part of both their Computer Science: Think Like a Programmer Journey and their “Take Action Project.”
“This project is teaching the girls about the importance of books and reading and also the importance of our local libraries as a place to discover new topics,” Daisy Troop leader Jaime Aulet said.
“We also discussed how children who do not have money to purchase all different kinds of books can go to a library and read and check out books for free,” Aulet added. “They are hoping by helping the library gain more books featuring girls coding, it will help more girls become interested in the topic.”
Coding is a list of step- bystep instructions for computer operation. Coding makes it possible for people to create computer software, games, apps and websites. Coders, or programmers, are people who write the programs behind everything people see and do on a computer.
Aulet said her troop members had been exposed to coding in school and were curious, so the group decided to complete the Daisy Think Like a Programmer Journey. The
“This project is teaching the girls about the importance of books and reading and also the importance of our local libraries as a place to discover new topics.”
Daisy Troop leader Jaime Aulet
Journey consists of the Think Like a Programmer badge and a Take Action Project.
To earn the Think Like a Programmer badge, Aulet said the girls learned about persistence, teamwork, algorithms and spoke to a woman who is currently a programmer.
“We discussed various ways the girls could complete their Take Action Project, but they all agreed the problem they wanted to solve was to get more girls interested in programming and coding,” Aulet said.
At first, Aulet said, the girls thought about donating some books to the school library, but since the troop has girls who live throughout Shelton, they all agreed donating books to Plumb Memorial Library would make more sense.
Aulet praised library Children’s Librarian Maura Gualtiere and Pia Ledina of Turning the Page bookstore in Monroe for assisting the girls in choosing different books about coding and programmers that others can relate to.
“We had a fantastic cookie sale last year and this year,” Aulet said, “so we used those funds to purchase some of the books and some of our troop families also donated a book.”