Girl Scouts Create Video Game Developer Badge To Push Young Women Into Science And Technology

There is a gap between men and women in science and technology fields, and the Girl Scouts have come up with a fun way to help fix this problem.

The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) and Women in Games International (WIGI) joined together and created a brand new merit badge for video game developers.

The Boy Scouts introduced a similar game design badge back in March, and now the girls will have a chance to level out the playing field.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a STEM-aligned video game badge for the Girl Scouts of the United States of America,” Amy Allison, vice president of WIGI, told GirlGamer.com. “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.”

Apparently, the badge is only being introduced in Los Angeles, but will eventually expand to other chapters in the United States.

According to Jezebel, this isn't the first time the Girl Scouts have made an attempt to encourage young women to take up an interest in STEM fields. The Girl Scouts of Louisiana, alongside the Geek Squad, sent 200 girls to a two-day technology academy emphasizing basic level computer usage.

"Fostering interest in technology and video game development in females of all ages ... is the main inspiration for working towards a national badge," Sheri Rubin, a member of WIGI's steering committee, told NBC News.

Girls Who Code is another program dedicated to increasing the number of women in technical fields by teaching young women how to build websites and other mobile apps. Last October at the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan, a number of students in the program showed off the apps they built at the conclusion of the eight-week program and talked about their own experiences learning how to code.

"Now I believe I can do anything," one student, Maria Gonzalez, told The Huffington Post. Gonzalez held a copy of a signed letter from President Obama to the young women in the Girls Who Code course and said, "I want to be President."

[h/t Jezebel.com]