Harbor Country Day School joins mission to introduce students to computer science
By Kate O’Brien – Harbor Country Day School
More than 125 students at Harbor Country Day School, a nonprofit independent school in St. James, joined this week’s worldwide Hour of Code computer science event. Touted as the “largest learning event in history,” the Hour of Code is a global effort to expose girls and boys to fundamental computing concepts on a level playing field, starting with the earliest learners.
At Harbor Country Day, students from preschool to eighth grade worked with various tools and applications to learn the complexities of computer programming. Students in the school’s four-year-old preschool program worked with Bee-Bots, which are programmable and movable robotic bees, to learn such skills as basic sequencing, estimation and problem solving. Kindergartners through fifth graders learned the basics of computer science by programming characters in the popular video game, Minecraft, to move through simulated Minecraft worlds. Students in the upper grades of six through eight used programming logic to solve puzzles within the Lightbot programming puzzle game.
“The Hour of Code is a movement that aligns perfectly with the core mission of Harbor Country Day School: to ‘cherish childhood, cultivate wonder and inspire confident learners and leaders,’” said Harbor Country Day Head of School John Cissel. “As I observed the various classes participating in their own ‘hours of code,’ I saw students who were 100% immersed in what they were doing. From the youngest to the oldest students, they all were awe-struck by their ability to control and manipulate characters and puzzle pieces with simple commands. They were, in effect, doing what computer programmers do every day — but in a fun, engaging, age-appropriate manner.”
“The Hour of Code is designed to demystify code and show that computer science is not rocket-science, anybody can learn the basics,” said Hadi Partovi, founder and CEO of Code.org. “Over 100 million students worldwide have tried an Hour of Code. The demand for relevant 21st century computer science education crosses all borders and knows no boundaries.”