Sirihaasa Nallamothu – Spring 2021 Award Recipient

Spring means that our second round of the Get Involved Award is kicking off! Our first award recipient is Sirihaasa Nallamothu, a current sophomore at University High School in Normal, Illinois. 

Her greatest volunteer project has been the Dream Code Project in partnership with Girl Scouts. Here, she is able to take her fascination with coding and use it to teach girls in grades 5-11 across the country Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java. 

The Dream Code Project aims to simplify complicated programming languages into easy-to-understand simple lessons. Dream Coders meet once a week for around 1.5-2 hours. Even after the program session ends, Sirihaasa encourages girls to reach out with their computer science questions, code bugs/errors, or simply if they need help or motivation. Additionally, Sirihaasa has expanded to community bonding sessions, where girls share stories from their week, hobbies, interests, and more. She also exposes girls to role models in STEAM through the Sisterhood Spotlight, so they can see trailblazers in STEM. 

Sirihaasa initially decided to start this club due to her own experiences learning computer science. In 7th grade when she decided to learn web development, she found that she was the only girl and was afraid to be curious and take risks while coding. Due to this lack of support, she was unable to truly connect with the coding material. As a result, she founded the Dream Code Project with a core value of creating an environment where students were curious and felt comfortable making mistakes. She even encourages students to interrupt her to ask questions so that she shows they are engaged and truly understand the content being taught. In this way, she not only teaches them the basics of coding but also fuels their passion for discovery in computer science.

From the Dream Code Project, Sirihaasa has learned a lot about various teaching styles in-person and over a Zoom environment. She has also learned to be more patient and understanding with the students. View her lesson plans here: https://tinyurl.com/y9v7fpo5. This blog post was written based on information from her personal statement and interview with Get Involved Foundation board members.