**Author details**

*Theorizing STEM Education in the 21st Century*

learning is cast as experiential and enjoyable because it is designed to be engaging and to build upon girls' interests and identities and/or to connect STEM learning to everyday, real-life contexts [28, 36, 42]. Fashion FUNdamentals and Digital Youth Divas, in particular, adapt the lens of making from an esthetic and personal expres-

As they 'make,' transforming materials into finished objects, participants in the featured programs employ varied digital tools, such as digital textile printers, body and foot scanners, and LEDs [28]. Open-ended activities afford girls 'free choice' in decisions about what form the objects they create will take—whether those objects be a bridge, an interactive story, or a craft/textile/fashion product [28]. Providing girls this sort of 'room to roam' creatively seems to build girls' self-confidence and sense of empowerment as makers and as STEM learners [19, 28, 53, 55, 58, 64]. Both individual and collaborative projects are undertaken in the featured programs, providing girls opportunities to exercise their individual agency as makers as well as to build their skills as cooperative learners and problem-solvers [28]. Incorporating collaborative, hands-on approaches to 'learning through doing' seems to promote an openness to learning through trial and error among participants in Fashion FUNdamentals [59]. This is of note, as STEM educators advise that learning through making mistakes will help the next generation 'test new ideas in messier ways' as they enter the digital age [65]. Finally, and importantly, central to the scaffolding of each of the highlighted programs is a commitment to (a) providing girls positive female mentors and role models in STEM (who, in the case of Digital Youth Divas, come from backgrounds similar to those of the participants) and (b) offering girls opportunities to connect with one another in face-to-face and/or digital formats, sometimes in contexts that extend beyond the duration of the program (as in the case of FEMMESConnect) [16, 28, 54].

As an active learning strategy—or a way of *learning by doing*—making encompasses a wide range of activities and draws from diverse disciplines. Its connections to computer programming, creativity, design, and engineering, in particular, position making as a unique and valuable vehicle through which to ignite girls' interest in STEM, build their STEM identities, and foster their confidence to pursue STEM education and careers [20, 21, 64]. However, access to making programs and makerspaces remains a significant challenge in leveraging the potential of making to stimulate girls' STEM learning. As previously noted, access to maker spaces is often constrained by structural inequalities, and especially for youth of color and young female adolescents, groups that have conventionally experienced limited access to extracurricular STEM educational opportunities, as well [20, 25, 26, 46]. Given their long-standing commitment to principles of inclusion, equity, and diversity as well as their resource rich environment (e.g., people, technologies, facilities), universities are an important stakeholder in expanding access to STEM education to all members of their community, including girls, through the development of outreach programs that incorporate components of making. As demonstrated in our overview, university STEM programs developed with the aim of facilitating access and equity in STEM learning among young girls may take diverse forms, may emphasize either conventional or unconventional STEM disciplines, and may incorporate elements of making in varied and unique ways. Key to the success of such programs in kindling girls' STEM interest, confidence, and identities seems to be incorporating activities (a) that leverage girls' existing interests, (b) that provide girls the freedom to define and express the self in creative ways, and (c) that offer girls opportunities

sion perspective to entice girls to engage with STEM learning [24, 42].

**68**

to have "enjoyable" and "fun" experiences.

**3. Conclusion**

Karen Hyllegard\*, Jennifer Ogle and Sonali Diddi Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: karen.hyllegard@colostate.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
