At the end of Coppell High School’s long hallway, serious work is underway.
“So we’re trying to put a rubber band in a hole, a really small hole,” said student Lyla Hunter.
“This is an imitation of the industrial robots you see in industrial factories such as Amazon, TI and car manufacturers,” added teacher Nick Brown.
Their goal in life is not to build robots, but to become engineers who design and program robots.
“If you know both the construction and coding sides of how things work, you will be able to code more completely,” said student Srishika Mahendran.
The lesson here is simple. We teach coding, show its uses in the real world, and hope it gives students who love math and science something to think about.
Schools across North Texas are teaching coding and STEM to kids as early as first grade.
The building blocks that were placed at the time are now taking shape here.
“So when they graduate from that class, it’s not just, ‘Oh, I got an A,’ it’s this resource that allows them to step into Amazon or step into TI. I got it,” Brown added.
For years, we’ve heard that girls don’t pursue careers in STEM fields as much as boys, but that’s not what we’re seeing here.
“I’m used to having a lot of girls,” Mahisa Kodali said.
Many of these women admit that they found themselves in this situation by accident, but are actually very glad they did it.
“It was like my mom said, ‘This might be something you like,’ and when I went to class, it really hit me,” Hunter said.
