We Are VR Girls
Alice Lai, Yichien Cooper · 2023
In this chapter, we take a critical approach to explore youth civic engagement with a focus on the gendered dimensions of civic engagement. Recognizing girls are underprepared and underrepresented in STEM fields, we are concerned that these shortcomings will continue to affect girls’ interests and competencies in participating in civic projects that impact the natural and human-built environments. To address this challenge, we adopted a project-based learning (PBL) pedagogy to devise STEAM learning activities aimed at empowering a group of 5th to 8th-grade girls. The activities prompted the girls to use a virtual reality, an augmented reality, and a 3-D printer through which they collaboratively embark on self-identified community development-based projects. We highlight two of the girls’ projects to exemplify their artistic and scientific solutions for protecting local wildlife and improving public safety. We affirm that PBL pedagogy and the STEAM-integrated projects can genuinely foster adolescent girls’ interests and abilities in civic engagement.