Whiz kids tackle coding

An after-school computer science program celebrated national Digital Learning day Thursday with a group of pre-teen coders.

Kids aged 8-12 meet biweekly at the Penticton Library for free programming and hands-on electronics workshops during the "Hour of Code." 

"We previously had programs at the library for tweens and they weren't taking off like we wanted to," said Lara Harker, program organizer. "We wanted to expand and offer programming that supports what schools are doing in the direction of STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math."

For Digital Learning Day, which is observed in locations countrywide, Harker decided to teach the kids some code using a Minecraft game. Instead of being able to control the characters with their mouse or arrow keys, the kids needed to use simple coding blocks to build their moves.

"For a lot of our patrons, they don't necessarily have access to these technologies anywhere else, so we want to provide that opportunity to learn," Harker said. "It's just a really good transferable skill. If you know how to code, it's not just the coding, it's the aspect of problem solving as well."

The Digital Learning Day event was Grade 5 student Sawyer Fader's first time coding, and he thought it was "really cool." He hopes to use the skills he learned in the future.

"If you wanted to code a robot to learn around, you'd need to know how to code," Fader said. 

His mother, Julie Fortin, said the program was giving her son valuable insight into how technology work.

"It's just a great program, it's an asset to have in our town," Fortin said.

Harker said the teaching has gone both ways in her experience with the program.

"I have learned so much putting these programs on and I always get excited when the kids walk in the door, because they're always excited, so it's great to be working with them and learning from them," Harker said.

For more information on the ongoing after school programming club, visit the Penticton Library website here.