Code Savvy Educate
Giving students access to quality computer science is important, it’s even better when they have educators who can support and guide their CS journey toward the future. Through our school partnerships and educator cohort membership, we provide the same hands-on, project-based
learning approach for teachers to ensure that they are comfortable and confident implementing and building equitable computer science experiences in their classroom.
In 2021-22, our MNCodes Educator Program trained approximately 165 educators and impacted about 5,000 students directly in their classrooms. Our virtual monthly cohort sessions gave educators the skills and approach needed to equitably bring computer science directly into their classrooms. We partnered with 10 schools to help them build equity-focused computer science programming and pathways for students throughout their district.
Code Savvy Experience
Giving girls and other historically excluded students access to opportunities for project-based, hands-on learning with tech is critical to overcoming the technology gap that society faces. This year, with the help of sponsors like Thomson Reuters and Cargill, we’ve been able to expand our offerings to more diverse students, offer assistance to even more schools, and offer access to more quality computer science education.
Through our Technovation[MN] program and virtual events, we helped 129 girls learn design thinking skills and develop mobile applications with the help of 89 mentors from the business community and 51 judges at our Appapalooza event.
We also kicked off our Byte-Sized Challenge this year, working with two schools to introduce 23 female students to computational thinking skills through the Micro:Bit. This program will scale up to 4-5 schools in the 2022-2023 season and will include programming for male students to be more inclusive and have greater impact in the community.
Code Savvy Explore
Providing youth the space to experiment and explore
coding and technology, and develop their computational
thinking skills, is at the very heart of our mission. We do
this through both virtual and in-person code clubs, camps,
and workshops. Continuing on the legacy of both Rebecca
Schatz and Matt Gray, we create opportunities for exploring
tech that are fun and engaging.
Our year-round virtual coding clubs clocked 1,394 learning hours for students and over 900 volunteer hours in the 2021–2022 season. These lessons focused mainly on Scratch, Thunkable, and the Python programming language. After 2 years of providing these services and mentoring 100% virtually, this year we have returned to in-person programming as well as a virtual option to help meet the needs of our community.