Work in progress - Games for life workshop: Outreach to middle and high school age girl scouts

In spring 2008 the author, a professor teaching game design at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), offered a lecture on the game design process and video game industry to a local Girl Scouts of America (GSA) troop to help them meet the requirements for the “Games for Life Interest Project.” (GFL) In fall 2009, RIT faculty and students offered their first full-day GFL workshop, designed to allow the scouts to meet the majority of the requirements for the insignia. The workshop has since been offered, in various forms, twice in Rochester, New York and once in Los Angeles, California. The workshop has now been refined to the point where the author plans to release the course materials openly via the web so that others across the country can offer the workshop in their home communities. This Work In Progress paper will discuss the evolution of the workshop and its materials, the creation of teacher/presenter training materials, the plans for distribution of the materials and follow-up with troop leaders who have offered the workshop in their own communities. Index Terms – Video Games, Free and Open Source Software, Outreach, Service Education, Women in Computing