Meet the Bee Bots: STEM Coding Lab introduces local kids to computer science learning

Photo above courtesy of KDKA.

When most adults were in school, we took science classes like biology, physics and chemistry. Computer science may be an even more important science class for today’s kids, yet nearly 90% of kindergarten through 8th grade students don’t have computer science classes. That’s why the non-profit STEM Coding Lab is providing computer classes for students with 119 classes every week all around our region.

At Pittsburgh Public Schools King Pre-K-8 School, STEM Coding Lab turned a classroom into a permanent computer science classroom. The kids are using objects that look like yellow bees with black dots and are fun like toys, called Bee-Bots. Second grader Kamorrah Henderson describes them as “really cute and the eyes light up and stuff,” and classmate Timothy Eslon says, “I like that it moves and it turns and the way you make it go.”

But these kids aren’t just playing – they’re actually programming the bee-themed robots using computer science skills like coding.

Casey Mindlin runs STEM Coding Lab, which provides computer science education to kids in under-resourced school — giving them the skills to be creators, rather than just users, of technology.

“Computer science is the number one source of all new wages in the U.S., but far fewer than 10% of our region’s elementary and middle schools have access to a computer science course,” Mindlin says.

Naomi Odusanya loves teaching computer science for STEM Coding Lab because she says she was never exposed to it as a kid and most of the kids she teaches aren’t either. She says the young people learn both hard and soft skills.

“The hard skills are the tech and learning how to program. They’re learning how to code. The soft skills are things like navigational awareness, learning directions,” she says. “They’re doing math because they have to count the steps. They’re learning how to share, how to be a team player.”

King Pre-K-8 is one of 35 locations in nine school districts offering these STEM Coding Lab classes for kids in kindergarten through 8th grade. And now they’re expanding with mobile classes. The Cyber bus goes to four public housing projects in Pittsburgh, and a new bus will soon be going to Greene County to reach rural kids who don’t’ have access to computer science classes.

As the kids get older, the lessons include web design, app development, animation and gaming, and more advanced robotics. It’s all designed to help prepare kids for the future.