The computer science and business students hosted the fourth grade classes of Lakeview Elementary, Reeves Hinger Elementary and Crestview Elementary for an “Hour of Code” event in the 1300 hallway Thursday, Dec. 10 and Friday, Dec. 11.

The fourth graders participated in age-friendly exercises designed to introduce them to computer sciences. Fourth grade teacher Brenda Zotter said that “Hour of Code” was beneficial to the students.

“It’s a great thing for these kids, because usually they wouldn’t be exposed to something like this until they were in high school,” Zotter said. “Seeing it now gives them an idea of what they might want to do when they get to high school, because most kids don’t know what computer sciences are. I think they have an idea now.”

Zotter said that it is important to introduce elementary aged children to computer sciences.

“I think it’s important that we get kids understanding what coding is earlier, so they have a better idea what it is, and they get more interested when they’re older,” Zotter said. “A couple of these kids have already said that they want to be programmers, and this is a stepping stone to help them see if they really do want to do that.”

Junior Levi Mauk said that many of the fourth graders learned “Hour of Code” at a fast pace.

“They’re surprisingly smart, really catch on and have already begun to think that way, in a programming mindset,” Mauk said. “We just showed them how to work the program and they just did most of it on their own.”

Mauk said that some of the fourth graders surpassed the learning ability of several of the high school students.

“These younger kids, they’ve been growing up in the world of technology,” Mauk said. “They know way more and catch on way faster than some people that I know who are in high school.”

Computer science teacher Lance Culbert agreed that the elementary students learned at a surprising pace.  

“My students had done it maybe two days before, and they went through it, and they were like ‘Oh, it’s going to take fourth graders forever to do this’ but they went through it so fast,” Culbert said. “It seemed like the older the people got the slower they were.”

Zotter said that the high school students assisted the fourth graders well.  

“The high schoolers were great with the kids,” Zotter said. “They were well behaved, they helped the kids tremendously and kids love having the interaction with the older kids.”

Mauk said that students outside the business and computer science classes could volunteer to help host “Hour of Code” next year.

“You have to be kind of mathematically and programming minded,” Mauck said. “If you don’t think stuff through step by step than it might not be your type of stuff, but if you like math, than you should definitely try it.”