Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) is ramping up its focus on technology education. “We know that whatever field our students choose as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly depend on understanding technology,” says Christine Guitar, the district’s executive director of communications. That growing emphasis on technology was on display this month, as TCAPS launched an “Hour of Code” event involving nearly 1,200 students district-wide. Hour of Code is an online platform, created by the nonprofit organization Code.org, that offers hourlong tutorials aimed at helping K-12 students learn computer science.

Both during national Computer Science Week (December 9-15) and throughout December, TCAPS students of all ages participated in the Hour of Code and began or continued journeys in computer science. According to Nate Brush, a science and technology teacher at West Middle School, it’s programs like Hour of Code that will enable many students to be competitive in the job market after high school.

“Industries from entertainment, to automotive, to tech companies like Google and Microsoft – they've all realized that we are in dire need of computer programmers,” Brush tells The Ticker. “Hour of Code is a way to pique the interest of students and get them into coding.”

TCAPS’ growing focus on educational opportunities centered around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) has led to numerous achievements among students. One of those pupils is Elizabeth Saunders, a senior at Central High School. A student at Elk Rapids in middle school, Saunders decided to transfer to TCAPS for high school to be a part of Central’s vaunted SCI-MA-TECH program. Early on, she and her friend Sophie Haas realized they were among the only girls in the program. Eager to encourage greater female representation in STEM, Saunders and Haas launched TechGirls: members work with younger students throughout the district, encouraging them to stick with STEM. Launched in January 2017, it’s grown from just five girls to close to 30.

Saunders and Haas underline how broad STEM can be in terms of their core interests. Where Haas plans to go into medicine, Saunders says she’s applying to the likes of Stanford, UCLA, and UC Berkley, all known for top-tier computer science programs. It’s an interest that dates back to sophomore year for Saunders, when she built her first mobile app as part of a semester-long project for her computer science course. The app, called Calcusaver, won a “Congressional App Challenge” award in 2018.

“The user can input their name, calculator code, and an emergency contact’s phone number,” Saunders says of the app. “After that, the app is just a calculator until the calculator code is activated.” The code, she explains, could be any random number: say, 30. But if the user inputs a math problem where 30 is the answer – such as multiplying three by 10 – the app’s core function activates and the emergency contact gets a message to call the user. Saunders says she developed the app in response to the “Me Too” movement, as a means of potentially helping women get out of dangerous or uncomfortable situations. However, it’s also a versatile tool: she knows at least one teacher who has used it to escape a meeting.

Another TCAPS STEM leader is Gracie Noller, a senior who attends West Senior High and the Manufacturing Technology Academy at the Traverse Bay Intermediate School District Career-Tech Center (CTC). Noller’s interests lean toward robotics and mechanical engineering. She’s a two-time scholarship recipient to Michigan Tech’s “Women in STEM” summer programs, including a summer curriculum last year where she learned how to convert gas-powered vehicles into hybrid or fully-electric cars. That experience, plus leadership roles on robotics teams both at West and the CTC, has pushed Noller to eye a future in automotive engineering.

While students like Saunders, Haas, and Noller are leaving behind a legacy of STEM excellence at TCAPS, younger students are stepping up to grab the baton. Van Collins, an eighth grader at West Middle School, says he fell in love with STEM after participating in Hour of Code events in grade school. Eventually, he started using Khan Academy to learn Javascript on his own time. This year, after getting injured during football season and being told by a physical therapist that he’d have to sit out a semester of gym, Collins enrolled in a STEM Challenge class he’d already taken and essentially acted as a classroom aide to fellow students.

Next year, Collins will head to West Senior High, where the SCI-MA-TECH program – originally a Traverse City Central creation – recently launched. It’s a program he’s interested in joining, and one that existing students already love. One example is Elijah Kree, who has been trying to get as much STEM education as possible since coming to TCAPS from a private school that had limited STEM opportunities. Currently a freshman and a first-year SCI-MA-TECH student, Kree is already trying to apply the skills he’s learned to something with a real-world application. His current project? Developing a system that would allow a user to transfer everything from an old computer – including programs, files, and even account information – to a new machine in one fell swoop.
 
PICTURED: At left, Gracie Noller. Lower right-hand are Elizabeth Saunders and Sophie Haas.