The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) and Women in Games International (WIGI) are creating a course for girl scouts that will get them engaged with technology and making games, all to earn a video game developer badge.
This should in no way be taken out of context but this is just one more reason why I’d like to be a girl scout.
Using games as a way in, Amy Allison, vice president at WIGI said “creating this badge will get young girls excited in technology and science and let them know that they, too, can have a career in the video game industry.”
This is an excellent idea. If you’re wanting children to learn about programming and technology, subjects that are regularly dull as anything when taught in schools (speaking as someone who spent two months learning to make databases in a Computer Science course), then wrapping those lessons up in game design should make them much more palatable.
Boy scouts already have their own Game Design merit badge so it’s about time the girls were given the option. Unfortunately, this is only currently being rolled out in Los Angeles but hopefully it will be expanded to other scout groups in the US and make the jump to the UK, too.