Stan STEAM Summer Camp Helps Coders Start Young

Associate Professor of Computer Science Kyu Han Koh and Stan State student volunteers molded young minds one line of code at a time this summer.

During the Stan STEAM Summer Camps, Koh taught free classes to students looking to begin their computer coding journey. The program provided beginning and advanced sessions in Scratch coding for third to sixth graders and a session on Python coding for seventh to ninth graders.

"After moving to the Central Valley, I looked for STEAM-focused camps for my kids but found nothing local," Koh said.

He found that he wasn't the only parent looking for these learning opportunities.

"Since I have a background in computer science education, I thought, 'Why not teach something myself?'"

Coding involves writing instructions that a computer follows step-by-step. Programmers use coding to create websites and applications. Programmers can also use coding to improve how computers handle data, making the computers quicker and more efficient in their processing. One student volunteer compared it to playing Minecraft: just as a gamer can create amazing buildings one block at a time, a programmer can do the same with code.

Computer science major Jalan Elcano volunteered his summer to help provide instruction at the summer camps and found he was learning too.

"I know how to code, but teaching code to others was more challenging," Elcano said. "I realized the students attending the camp might know how to read code but not necessarily understand it, so I had to learn how to explain it better."

The campers who attended, as well as Elcano, learned from one of the best. In 2021, a study published in the Association of Computing Machinery's journal Transactions on Computing Education named Koh the ninth most active contributor to computational thinking in the world. When he shared his expertise with campers, parents like Diane Blood took notice.

Blood was excited to bring her child back for his second camp with Koh.

"After moving to the Central Valley, I looked for STEAM-focused camps for my kids but found nothing local. I thought, 'Why not teach something myself?'"

-Kyu Han Koh, Associate Professor of Computer Science

"He did a camp in the spring and was interested in trying it again," Blood said. "He's big into technology, and I'm happy he got the extra experience during the summer."

Blood witnessed the camp's positive impact on her son and other participants.

"Camps like these are great for kids interested in STEAM," she said. "They bring them together and give them a sense of community. They also build and strengthen their skills. My son has been interested in computers since he was little, and I think this camp will push him in that direction for his future."

Sophia, a seventh grader, said the classes were challenging but educational.

"I can see a future in computer science, but I have a lot to learn," she said. "This is my first time at Stan State, and it's been a cool experience. Dr. Koh was nice and made everything easy to understand. I would consider coming here when I'm old enough."

Koh said he hopes that the younger generation will go on to do great things as they learn about and embrace coding and computer science.

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