CS Sparks is an initiative which will bring girls in Transition Year from DEIS schools in South Dublin into the (opens in a new window)School of Computer Science in UCD to participate in coding in a fun and exciting way which will also highlight Computer Science as a career with diverse applications and a broad potential for positive societal impact. Our aim is for the participants to consider studying CS at third level which we believe will provide exciting and rewarding career opportunities.
The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) program was introduced by the Irish Government to provide additional educational supports to primary and post-primary schools with the highest levels of disadvantage. These students are 50% less likely to make the transition to third level education than their non-DEIS counterparts. We want to support and encourage more of these students to continue their education after secondary school. We specifically want to encourage more female students to continue their education through their participation in a computer science (CS) outreach program.
The above picture shows the CS Sparks volunteers taking part in a training session with Stephen Howell (Academic Program Manager for Microsoft Ireland) where they were trained in using micro:bit and Kinect 2 Scratch for Computer Science education.
Check out a (opens in a new window)CS Sparks video
"What is Computer Science?" View a CS Sparks PowerPoint presentation
2017-10-31