Importance of Coding for Kids: The Hour of Code Initiative

Meet the Scratch Cat! Students will learn to animate, add sounds to, and change the color of this cat throughout Hour of Code.

Scratch cat is copyright to Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.

The Bruce Museum is proud to participate in Hour of Code for the second year in a row. The Hour of Code is a global computer science initiative that creates a fun and creative environment for students to be introduced to the concepts of computer programming.

The first Hour of Code initiative was launched in December 2013 as part of Computer Science Education Week. Since then, more than 140 million students in 180+ countries have been empowered to learn by this program.

By partnering with local schools, the Bruce Museum can extend this learning opportunity past our walls. Last year, more than 400 students in Greenwich and beyond learned an hour of code from Bruce Museum instructors. This year the number will climb even higher!

Whether they’re animating a holiday card using Scratch or their own Flappy Bird game, there are coding tutorials available to capture any student’s interest. In this changing world, computer literacy is becoming a more and more important part of society. Hour of Code raises the bar even further by inspiring students to discover new ways of thinking and expressing themselves through technology.

We currently have 30 Hour of Code sessions planned across 10 schools in New York and Connecticut. It's going to be an exciting few weeks for Bruce Science and Education!

- Kate Dzikiewicz, Paul Griswold  Howes Fellow

This is cross-posted on Whitby School's Passion for Learning Blog