Wednesday, June 06, 2018

Coding is cool. Coding is fun. Coding is powerful.

Girls in grades 6-12 will learn just how cool, fun and powerful at the first of three Girls’ Coding Camps 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, June 22, at the Fond du Lac Public Library’s Idea Studio. The session is free; lunch will be provided. Registration is required and begins at 9:30 a.m. Friday, June 8, at fdlpl.org, click Calendar.

Facilitated by Samantha Nelson, a web developer for BrownBoots Interactive of Fond du Lac, girls at the camp will design a web page for their (imaginary) new pizza restaurant. They’ll learn how to create a working landing web page using coding languages such as HTML, CSS3, Bootstrap and jQuery and software tools such as Brackets. Girls will flex their creative muscles with personalizing their web pages with decorations and features.

Nelson, a Fond du Lac native and graduate of UW-Eau Claire, started her career as an illustrator but “made the jump to coding a few years ago and never looked back,” she said. She specializes in front-end web development, creating dynamic websites.

Two additional Girls’ Coding Camps will be Fridays July 27 and August 17. Registration for those camps will open at 9:30 a.m. two weeks before each event.

The Idea Studio’s three coding camps are an effort to gauge interest in a library-sponsored local chapter of Girls Who Code, a national organization of after-school clubs and programs that aims to close the gender gap in computer sciences.

Idea Studio summer hours, June through August: Monday through Thursday, 1-8 p.m.; Friday 1-6 p.m.; every Saturdays, noon- 4 p.m. More information is available at www.fdlpl.org/ideastudio or by calling (920) 322-3946 during studio open hours.