Young students show off video game making skills at RDC

“The students have to learn about the history about how video games are created,” Good explains. “Then they have to create a story, so there’s a lot of writing involved, and then once the story is created, they actually code a video game based on their story.”

Good says the project has been extremely engaging for students and that what they’re calling Central Alberta Innovation Day will hopefully become an annual fixture.

“They’re building those really important literacy and numeracy skills, but they’re also building those 21st century skills that kids are going to need,” he adds.

Greta Boettcher, a grade five student at Annie L. Gaetz Elementary, doesn’t really play video games much, but says the coding project was definitely not boring.

“In our game, when a huge chemical reaction occurs, our character has to escape the city and collect something to stop the chemical reaction. So he has to avoid the acid puddles and then collect stuff to stop it all,” she goes on.

Students at Barrie Wilson focused their video games on immigrant groups which have come to Canada over the past 200 years.

CanCode is a $50 million initiative just launched by the Government of Canada to provide one million Canadian youth with the, “essential tools for the well-paying middle class jobs of today and tomorrow.”

The program also aims to encourage girls, Indigenous Canadians and other under-represented groups to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). It will also equip 63,000 teachers with the ability to teach digital skills and coding.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Young students show off video game making skills at RDC

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