Female students from 21 Fayette County elementary and middle schools will celebrate the culmination of a gaming-related project Saturday. The Girls Who Game participants used the Minecraft for Education format as a way to further their Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills. Ashley Faulkner is a STEM learning coach in Fayette Schools.
“Our biggest goal is to expose our young students to a future possibility for college and career readiness. So, that is truly the goal so that our girls, our minorities especially, along with any student who participated, could see themselves in a STEM career later on,” said Faulkner.
Faulkner said the Minecraft format allows for the development of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity among the Girls Who Game participants. This particular joint effort involved Minecraft 3-D modeling to help design the future Cardinal Run North Park in Lexington.
“Our girls game clubs kind of took that information and created blueprints and did some budgeting to figure out how they could build a park that was actually inclusive for all people regardless of ability, age, and their interests,” said Faulkner.
Saturday’s program at the Don and Cathy Jacobs Science Building at UK will include comments from Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton and Kentucky Native and NASA engineer Alora Mazarakis.
