Amazon Future Engineers and CoderZ Offer Robotics Training to Title I Schools

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 09/28/20

The Amazon Future Engineers program is providing Title I teachers access to a free CoderZ robotics course of their choice. The offer is available to the first 1,000 teachers who apply through the CoderZ website. CoderZ produces an online platform that helps students learn STEM skills, including coding, robotics (with virtual robots) and physical computing. Amazon Future Engineer is a learner-to-earner program intended to increase computer science education for children and young people from underserved and underrepresented communities.

To take advantage of the offer, classes in grades 4-12 must complete an introductory three-hour challenge that introduces them to the basics of computer science (and also how goods are delivered at Amazon). Students will hear from two Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship winners who share their own journeys into computer science.

From there teachers can move students onto one of CoderZ's more advanced coding modules. Participating educators will have access to the course of their choice for six months for up to 150 students. Teachers may also request access to different courses if they teach varied grade and/or ability levels. The courses run between 15 and 25 hours and include game-like missions that require students to use the visual and text code editor Blockly to develop and test code. The courses include teacher resources, such as guides, presentations and solution sets.

Teachers can find out if their schools are eligible to participate in the program on the CoderZ website.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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