By AMBER HOLT
Student contributor
Students in grades 7-12 at Cranberry Area High School participated in the 2nd annual Hour of Code challenge in the first week of December.
The Hour of Code exposed students to computer science. After they go through college, a degree could score them a job that pays 40 percent more than the average college graduate. They also have about 500,000 careers available from which to choose. Media specialist Colin Milne noted that “Computer science is a fundamental part of our society and economy. Everything from being an engineer to an artist involves some form of computer science.”
¨Every career is the simple answer,” Milne said when asked about the field’s variety of occupations.
Participants completed coding games for the opportunity to win Amazon gift cards. Milne, who is also a teacher and librarian at CHS, guided the students as they learned more about computer science.
The computer language that the students learned throughout the Hour of Code is called “Blockly.” Blockly is often used by top schools such as Harvard and MIT and is a system of drag and drop commands for coding. Participants then could tell characters on the screen to perform various tasks.
The incentive for a lot of people who took part in the Hour of Code at Cranberry was Amazon gift card prizes. Three $20 and four $10 cards were raffled to students in each of three age categories for completing up to three activities. This was made possible by sponsors Venus Telephone Corporation and The Matric Group.
For the students at CHS who enjoyed the Hour of Code, there is an option to sign up for the “Computer Science: Discoveries” elective, if they haven’t already. It is for any 9th-12th grade individual who might be interested next year. The class learns about HTML designing, making apps and games through JavaScript, and internet safety. Milne says that they look to make their own devices in the future.
Cranberry also hopes to have a partnership with the group, Girls Who Code, in the near future. Any girl interested will be able to join a club that will teach the basics of coding and provide information on inspirational women’s stories in computer science. A group like this is seen as “a way to bridge the gap” between the overwhelming statistics that there are more men in the field than women.
To the many participants in the Hour of Code, it really comes down to spreading the word of such a large field. “Coding and computer science are things that people are not aware of,” mentioned Milne. He hopes that the word of mouth and gift cards are enough motivation to teach students about the endless possibilities of computer science.
Amber Holt is a student at Cranberry High School and a member of Cranberry Chronicles, the school’s journalism/publications group.
