Malala Yousafzai. Greta Thunberg. Emma Gonzalez. Darnella Frazier. These are just some of the changemakers who have been impacting global culture with groundbreaking achievements. At 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. At 18, Emma Gonzalez emerged as a rising voice for gun control in the aftermath of the Parkland massacre. At 15, Greta Thunberg initiated the School Strike for Climate movement and at 16 was named the youngest Time Person of the Year for her climate activism. At 17, Darnella Frazier fearlessly trained her phone camera to record a harrowing event that helped bring justice for George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis. Though accounts of girl heroism have cropped up throughout history (hello, Joan of Arc!), the sheer number of girls stepping forward with leadership, creative innovation and downright bravery has increased exponentially in recent years. Globally, girls are taking unprecedented leadership, and, like Malala, often at great personal risk, long before graduating from high school. This course will explore the role of these innovation trendsetters on global culture, media making and social change as well as the role of social media in telling their stories. How do powerful teenage girls icons in popular culture inspire real world action, and what is the expanding global impact of real girls’ achievements and innovations? Students will emerge from the course with social media skills, a gallery of teenage heroines and a multimedia portfolio featuring digital journalism, blog posts, video interviews, photography and creative writing.