Boulder, Colorado – February 3, 2015 - Thanks to the 2015 Google RISE Partnership awarded to Scalable Game Design Mexico: Chic@s Code, girls in middle schools in the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico will be learning computational thinking through Game Design. The Scalable Game Design (SGD) Project at the University of Colorado in partnership with the Computational Thinking Foundation, Tecnológico de Monterrey, the Instituto Innovación Transferencia Tecnología, Secretaria de Educación de Nuevo León, and the Shodor Education Foundation will introduce game design to more than 3,500 middle school students, including 1,700 girls. This partnership will provide computer science education through the proven Scalable Game Design curriculum. Chic@s Code will also produce Spanish language SGD curriculum for use all over the U.S.
Technological literacy is crucial for 21st century workers. Companies are predicting a shortage of computer scientists, especially women and underrepresented minorities. To close this digital gap in education, Google is contributing $1.5 million in Google RISE Awards. 37 organizations in 17 countries received the regular Goggle RISE award and only three including Scalable Game Design received the prestigious Partnership award. In its sixth year, the RISE Awards directly support organizations that engage girls and minority students in extracurricular computer science programs. This year’s international collective effort to build the next generation of digital leaders will reach tens of thousands of students.
“It is critical for students, particularly girls, underrepresented minorities, and students of low economic background, to recognize they have the power to not only consume technology – but create it. We're invigorated by the work of the 2015 RISE Award winners and look forward to partnering with them to inspire the next generation of computer scientists around the world.” Roxana Shirkhoda, K-12 Outreach Program Manager, Google.
Chic@s Code will provide hands-on computer programming and computational thinking activities to students and teachers, engaging and motivating them and opening up a new range of possibilities for students to pursue in education and as careers. In addition this project will facilitate increasing the awareness to parents, the local and larger regional communities that a future in fields of technology are not only available, but achievable.
For more information contact: Nadia Repenning 720-258-5965 nadia @ computationalthinkingfoundation.org