Fern Creek Coding Project 2

Fern Creek fourth graders gathered at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy today to showcase to the community their projects created as a result of volunteers working with them to teach them how to code.

The program was started by local technologist Kyle Christian Steele and Fern Creek Foundation volunteer Sarah Stack.

They took the fourth graders through a 20 week program spending just one hour each week to teach them the basics for programing.

The idea says Steele was that “every child should have software programing exposure early on.”

The set out with a goal to teach every fourth grader at Fern Creek how to code. This year they had 40 students in their program.

This is their second year and now he’s look to take the project to other local schools.

Fern Creek Coding Project 1

“We can get more students into the world with STEM knowledge to represent Orlando,” he said.

They use a free tool 3D programing tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University that allows students to build animated stories using coding principles.

Today’s event was the conclusion of their 20 week program and students also got to tour the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy where they learned how the students at FIEA build video games.

It was clear from the students that the skills they learned weren’t just about video games. “It’s more than just coding its about life skills, problem solving and collaborating,” said Steele.

Here’s a look at a screen shot from the application they used and one of the final projects:

Fern Creek Coding Screen Shot 1

Fern Creek Coding Screen Shot 2

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