(WSB photo)
two days before today Artemis 1 After landing on the water, the lunar mission spent an hour at the center of the universe for dozens of students. Denny International Middle School.
All grades for boys king maker On Friday afternoon, we had a full table at the Denny Library working with two guest presenters. Amazon> Employees visiting as part of code timean annual series of events around the world computer science education weekWe were invited to observe.
Jack Borriges When Pedrito Maynard Chan – Center and right of the above photo with the Denny’s Kingmaker’s Coordinator Keenen Allen – Was there on behalf of Amazon future engineer program. But while the name “Hour of Code” might make you think you’re doing a coding tutorial with your students, it’s not. Instead, he spent an hour giving an interactive presentation that included videos and quiz questions about the Artemis program and space exploration technology. For the competitive aspect to the quiz questions, before class began, the students cheered and chanted with enthusiasm while discussing the just-finished Argentina-Netherlands World Cup match.
Allen teaches four Kingmakers classes in one day, and says this year will be the first time students from all four classes will be in one location. Guest presenters were especially important as the pandemic made field trips impossible. Part of the inspiration the guests provided was their own background. Bolliges didn’t have an engineering background, but Maynard-Zhang told his students that he began teaching himself BASIC on an old computer and pursued his education until a Ph.D.and Stanford.He taught for four years before getting a job. microsoft Then Amazon.
Before the space program presentation, visitors asked questions. The first question: “Why is Amazon laying off employees?” Borriguez, a former recruiter, blamed it on the “economy,” but said, “I hope to get back to hiring soon.” I will!” added. Across the tech industry, there are currently 500,000 job openings. As the space presentation began, students were similarly first asked about the challenges astronauts face when going to space. was the first response, followed by ‘I’m away from my family’.
From there, things got more technical with information on topics ranging from rocket propellants to telemetry. All the quiz questions were cheers. The highlight was when the students shouted “DEEP SPACE NETWORK!” at the end. After learning about that communication system (“there are no cell towers in space,” they were informed).
The hours flew by, and since it was the last period of the day, in fact, the last period of the week, there was no chance of holding on. Applause, stickers provided, the Hour of Code is over. Towards the start, students were given one exhortation: “Have fun and think big!”