College hosts ChickTech program
ELIZABETH WALLK-OPALKA, left, and Emma Gonzalez, right, read computer screens during a data science workshop at Salish Kootenai College in Pablo on Saturday, April 14. The freshmen from Columbia Falls High School participated in the first ChickTech program held at SKC. (Ashley Fox/Lake County Leader)
In a room full of computers with peers their own age, two young women typed away, sometimes giggling at their screens.
Emma Gonzalez and Elizabeth Wallk-Opalka, both freshmen from Columbia Falls High School, participated in the inaugural ChickTech Workshop, held at the Salish Kootenai College in Pablo on Saturday, April 14.
Together, they sat side-by-side meticulously typing in codes in the Data Science Workshop, one of three offered throughout the day.
ChickTech is a national organization, with the Missoula chapter as the only one in Montana.
An educator from their respective schools nominated nearly 100 young women throughout western Montana for the program, which at the end of the nine-hour-day, students showcased their projects.
Katrina Schweitzer Edmunds, chapter marketing manager, said Saturday morning that 22 students registered and attended the event.
High school students from St. Ignatius, Polson, Ronan, Pablo, Hot Springs, Superior, Columbia Falls, Kalispell and Missoula were invited.
“The main goal is to build a network for young women to have the tools and accessibility to get into STEM (science, technology, engineering and math),” Schweitzer Edmunds said.
Both Gonzalez and Wallk-Opalka said they enjoy math, so they attended the free workshop.
Gonzalez said that while she doesn’t enjoy “computer work,” the program was an opportunity to try something new. “I don’t hate (STEM), but I like to jump and move around,” she said.
Wallk-Opalka aspires to be a video game designer, and attending the program was the beginning to getting a taste of the coding aspect of the field.
Using her experience in the coding field, Trish Duce, led the Data Science Workshop that Gonzalez and Wallk-Opalka attended.
“I’m teaching some of the fundamentals of computer programming,” she explained.
Duce, a computer science lecturer at the University of Montana, is interested in getting more females involved in the field.
“It’s just as good of a field for women as it is for men,” she said, adding she tries to give young women “a taste” for technology when she can.
“Anybody can do (computer sciences), and at least try it out,” Duce said.