Purdue's SPIRIT effort promotes women in technology WEST LAFAYETTE, IN (wbaa) - A group of teachers, school guidance counselors, and high school students will be on the Purdue campus this month to learn more about computer careers.

The Surprising Possibilities Imagined and Realized Through Information Technology, or SPIRIT, program is designed to increase the number of students who are pursuing jobs in the field, particularly women.

Purdue Computer and Information Technology professor and SPIRIT director Alka Harriger says the decline in the number of students interested in computer-related fields of study is partly due to a misperception that the careers involved are boring.

Harriger says students will work on projects and hear from guest speakers.

She says teachers will receive software, textbooks, and lesson plans to use in their own classrooms.

SPIRIT participants will fill out surveys to measure the effectiveness of the program.

The three-year project is being paid for by a grant from the National Science Foundation. © Copyright 2009, wbaa