Article content continued

Although she didn’t think she was good at math, Arnason taught herself how to program robots.

“What I’ve learned is that I’m better at math when it involves making robots run around the room.”

Sarmiento said she was outnumbered by men when she did a diploma in digital media and information technology focusing on animation.

“I felt very intimidated by the field.”

Now, she’s working on her master’s degree in landscape architecture — a field dominated by white men, she said.

It’s those kind of atmospheres that prompted the creation of organizations like Ladies Learning Code, a non-profit that runs coding workshops for women, girls, and kids. The University of Alberta’s WISEST branch also runs programs to spark girls’ interests in science, technology, engineering and math.

There’s a historical under-representation of women in technological careers, said Arnason.

“It’s important — just like in our library collections — for women to see themselves represented among their peers,” Arnason said. “If they don’t see female instructors for these courses, and they don’t see women in roles of authority … I think it’s harder for girls to make that leap.”

Beyond the buzz of a 3-D printer, sound booths, instruments, X-boxes, computers and video editing stations in the downtown library’s makerspace, 13-year-old Jasmine Li spends an hour in a classroom to learn the basic premises of coding.

Li has already used a software program called Scratch to make games and animations. Her mom wants her to expand her skills, said Li, who’s going into Grade 8 at Vernon Barford Junior High.”(I want) the feeling of being able to do these things by myself. It seems more like grown-ups and professionals do this sort of thing, so it makes me feel older,” she said.

The free drop-in course for teens, which runs for six sessions this summer, will focus on teaching HTML and CSS languages to help girls create and style websites.

jfrench@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jantafrench