Nearly 100 elementary students from two schools this week had a chance to navigate the adventures in the Minecraft Voyage Aquatic activity and help the Grinch save Christmas with just their iPad, a bit of coding and some help from our students in the Computer Science department.
The event was called Hour of Code, a program Faulkner has been hosting on campus each year since 2013. This week fifth and fourth-grade students from Alabama Christian Academy and Dalraida Elementary School came on campus to learn about computer science and understand the basics of computer coding.
The goal of Hour of Code, a national program, is to help students see computer science as fun and creative and accessible at all ages, regardless of background. During that hour, the students partnered up and used simple codes to find treasure, solve puzzles or capture all the presents to deliver back to Whoville.
To help them were several Faulkner computer science majors.
“Our students volunteer to assist our visitors with the Hour of Code activity,” said Dr. Susan Hammond, Chair of the Computer Science department. “It gives them an opportunity to serve the local community and share their excitement about computer science with the next generation. It also boosts their confidence as they see how much they have learned.”
“This activity also exposes our young students to technology and computer science and encourages them to know that they can learn how to code.”