Scratch Stories for the Environment
This past May, Code::XtremeApps::2010 launched its fourth annual competition held by the Information Technology Standards Committee (ITSC) and the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore. This year, they partnered with the National Environment Agency (NEA) to launch a "green theme" to promote sustainable living practices and environmental awareness. The competition is focused on the Open Category, where adults race against the clock to develop a web or mobile application in 24-hours, but there is also a Junior Category for children under 12 to create stories and games using Scratch.
In the Junior Category, a workshop was held before the competition to introduce Scratch. Then, 39 children in 14 different teams were given 4 weeks to conceive and develop an animated story, game, or application based on the tagline: "Caring for our clean and green environment."
The Junior Category workshop included a pre-workshop for mentors followed by a two-module training workshop for the children. The curriculum was created by Leong Hon Wai who teaches at the Department of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore.
