The Eva K. Bowlby Public Library in Waynesburg kicked off their seasonal Coding Program Thursday evening, with the first meeting of 2018 for their weekly program titled, “Code Squad.”

Each semester since December 2016, Bowlby Library has hosted Code Squad sessions every Thursday evening at 5 p.m. The program begins teaching children between the ages of 6 and 12 how to do simple computer coding, using programs such as Scratch Jr. and Hopscotch.

Kathy Douglas, manager at Bowlby Library, said the library was able to start this program through their partnership with PBS Kids and Inquire Within. According to the Inquire Within website, the program brings educational resources into community libraries to help children learn new skills in subjects such as reading, math and technology.

“We partnered with PBS to do the Inquire Within programs, and so this is part of that in that they are teaching really young kids to code,” said Douglas.

This spring, 10-12 students are signed up for the weekly sessions.

Susan Strnisha, youth services manager at Bowlby Library, teaches the program to the children each season for eight to 10 weeks.

According to Strnisha, each student starts out learning on devices called Playtime Pads, provided by a grant from Inquire Within and PBS Kids. They use the program Scratch Jr. to begin learning computer programming.

“The idea was to introduce coding to [children] at an early level so that it wouldn’t be such an overwhelming experience once they got older, because then they’ll see these concepts in a more written form,” said Strnisha. “Once they start to see that, whether it be in high school, college, wherever; they won’t be so overwhelmed, because, for the concepts, they already had good foundation blocks with Scratch Jr. early on.”

At first, the group Strnisha taught only used Scratch Jr., in which students learned simple programming by learning how to make commands for characters on a screen to follow, including movement and speech. These commands are in the form of puzzle pieces the children can connect on the screen to create a scenario in the program.

“It looks like puzzle pieces to the kids. It’s all done with graphics,” said Strnisha. “Kids don’t necessarily need to know how to read to start this coding, but by the time we get into it, they’re using the literary components with reading and writing.”

After they learn Scratch Jr., students are able to develop games, such as mazes and character dodging games, on the devices.

Strnisha said her group size grew as the sessions progressed, and as the students gained more knowledge on coding, they wanted to learn more.

“I had a group that was so interested and excited about learning coding, I couldn’t stop there,” said Strnisha.

To accommodate her students’ desire for more education, Strnisha decided to do research on more advanced programs and contacted PBS. She got in touch with one of their media representatives in Ohio, who introduced other programs.

Once students finish working with Scratch Jr. and have shown they understand it through an assessment, Strnisha said they can now proceed to a more advanced program called, “Hopscotch”– another coding program, involving more reading.

“It’s amazing to see the progression and see the advancement happen so quickly,” said Strnisha.

The program at Bowlby Library recently received a grant by the Community Foundation of Greene County through the Bradford Forever Greene Squad in order to purchase new laptops. The laptops will allow students who have advanced from Hopscotch to continue to learn more difficult programming through the more advanced Scratch program.