According to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 70% of new STEM jobs will require some level of computer programming skills. But surveys conducted in Ohio by code.org (https://code.org/promote/oh)  show that 65% of Ohio high schools do not offer computer science classes, and even in schools that offer AP classes, fewer than 10% offer AP computer science.

Physics and physical science teachers can play an important role in the wider effort to help more students develop their capacity for coding and computational thinking, but until recently there were very few groups working nationally to empower these teachers to integrate computation into their courses. To address this, Prof. Chris Orban teamed up with OSU alum Dr. Richelle Teeling-Smith in 2017 to launch the STEMcoding project (http://u.osu.edu/stemcoding ) and create a youtube channel (http://youtube.com/c/STEMcoding ) with coding tutorials aimed at the high school level.

Prof. Chris Orban leads a group of 9th grade students from OSU's Young Scholars Program with a Physics of Video Games coding activity

This summer Prof. Orban is inviting physics and physical science teachers in Ohio and other states to participate in free online training sessions that overview the “Physics of Video Games” coding activities they developed. These activities, which focus on simple 2D games like asteroids and angry birds, have been used successfully in over a dozen high schools.

There are two different free opportunities for teachers this summer: an all-online professional development course June 24-July 3 where teachers can earn Continuing Education Credits, and an all-online tuition free course for graduate credit through OSU during the month of July. Teachers participating in the graduate course may need to pay $60 to set up an account with OSU’s graduate school. Interested teachers should e-mail Prof. Orban at orban@physics.osu.edu or fill out this form https://goo.gl/forms/EW7UYCzycNz4PpmD2

If you are interested to learn more about the STEMcoding project and the various events that they participate in you can also follow the STEMcoding project on twitter (http://twitter.com/STEMcoding), instagram (https://www.instagram.com/stemcoding/ ) or become a subscriber on youtube (http://youtube.com/c/STEMcoding).