BEMIDJI — You could see the computer screens reflected in their glasses.

About 25 girls, who will start grades 6-12 this fall, were invited to attend the free Girls Who Code Camp at Northwest Technical College this week and next week at BSU.

Ironically, the class had to deal with some server connection issues as they were setting up for their first day of camp, but eventually were able to log into an online coding program.

Jennifer Theisen, a developer/analyst at BSU, started the Northern Minnesota Girls Who Code Club, which is in its second year.

“We had a participation of 67 girls from the area ranging up from Ponemah all the way down to Laporte, so that was pretty exciting,” Theisen said of last year’s camp.

The camp is open to all skill levels and allows girls to learn at their own pace with instruction in programs such as Python and JavaScript, HTML and cascading style sheets, an introduction to Application Programming Interfaces and reusable code libraries.

They will also learn about women in the technology field, which Theisen says is lacking.

“Girls Who Code is a terrific organization because they’re getting younger girls interested in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) programs,” she said.

The goal of Girls Who Code is “to continue with technology and computer programming for the younger generation to be able to make the female population within the work force larger because right now it’s so small,” she said.

Students who complete 40 hours of classroom work will participate in a graduation ceremony at the end of the program; the last day is June 23.