Get ready for Hour of Code and CS Education Week!
5 fun projects to start your coding journey
Join people around the world in learning how to code by participating in Hour of Code next week! Hour of Code celebrates computer science and makes it more accessible to everyone through fun coding projects that can be completed in about an hour. At a time when women still receive only 19% of computer science degrees – and women of color only receive 4% of computer science degrees, introductory programs that demystify computer science and introduce young people to code in hands-on ways make a big difference. To participate, all you have to do is pledge to spend one hour on a computer science project during Computer Science Education week – on your own, with your students, or as a family – and then do it!
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite (and free!) Hour of Code projects below.
Our 5 favorite Hour of Code projects:
We selected a few projects that build on each other so you can create a very cool finished project – a webpage! For younger students, this is a fun entryway to building something they use all the time by themselves, and for older students (in high school and college), building a website can be great to host a resume or showcase a personal portfolio.
Build a webpage
Grades: 6+
Language: HTML/CSS
By: Khan Academy
Learn the basics of HTML and CSS to make a webpage. Learn about two important programming languages – HTML and CSS – as you create a webpage. You’ll also learn how to add pictures, headlines, text, and lists of items (accomplishments, or interests). This activity can also double as a digital holiday card for you to send out and show off to family and friends.
Add graphics to a website
Grades: 9+
Language: Javascript
By: CodeHS
Go deeper into adding visual interest to a webpage! Learn the basics of creating graphics objects on a screen by setting the type, shape, size, position, and color using JavaScript. Using geometric concepts, and the concept of getWidth() and getHeight(), you will create multiple graphic objects to make a webpage stand out.
Build an image gallery
Grades: 5+
Language: Block-based
By: Technovation
Turn your favorite pictures into an image gallery using code. Do you have a few favorite pictures from a vacation or an art project you’re dying to share? Taking a cue from some of your favorite websites, build an app that shows users a beautiful gallery of pictures. In this activity, you’ll use a block-based coding language like MIT’s App Inventor or Thunkable to build your gallery.
Going beyond Coding – exploring Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science is about more than just coding. These next two hour of code projects also introduce an important tool – artificial intelligence! Explore AI with minecraft and code.org. And then if you’re really up for a challenge, check out Technovation Families, where you’re invited to identify a problem in your community you want to solve – and then build an AI tool to solve it!
Minecraft: Ai for Good
Grades: 2+
Language: blocks
By: Minecraft (Education Edition)
Explore basic coding concepts and learn about artificial intelligence (AI) in this free Hour of Code! Program the Minecraft Agent to collect data about forest fires. Then write code to help prevent the spread of fire, save the village, and bring life back to the forest. Learn coding basics and explore a real-world example of artificial intelligence.
AI for Oceans
Grades: 3+
Language: Varies by experience level
By: Code.org
Learn about AI, machine learning, training data, and bias, while exploring ethical issues and how AI can be used to address world problems. Students will learn how we can use AI to help identify fish and trash, and use that information to clean up our oceans!
These are some of our favorites, but you can pick from hundreds of other Hour of Code activities to celebrate Computer Science Education Week next week! If you build something cool, show us on facebook, twitter, or instagram.