THE 20 Henty Public School pupils had their heads down, working.
The hubbub of the Henty Machinery Field Days continued just yards away, but if you could bottle the concentration of the small group you’d have a powerful elixir.
They were at Code Club, a project funded by Telstra and on Thursday hosted by Charles Sturt University’s Agritech Incubator.
The years five and six students were creating a game, the aim of which was to make wheat grow.
Code Club Australia community project coordinator Julia Hunt was impressed with the children’s skills.
“They’ve done some coding before, so they got really creative with it,” she said of their work using Scratch, a colour-coded drag-and-drop coding program.
In her role Ms Hunt travels the country helping regional Australia’s young people build their technological skills.
Of late she has been at Beef Week in Rockhampton, Queensland, and Sheepvention in Hamilton, Victoria.
“It’s really good getting into regional Australia because the kids don’t get the same exposure as those living in metropolitan areas – tying agriculture and technology together works, they really get into that.”
Telstra regional Australia senior specialist Ann Jakle said it was an opportunity for children to become creative with technology, to become users rather than just passive consumers of technology.
She said because the children were largely from an agricultural background it was good they were getting involved in coding.
“Well, we all know where agriculture is headed, it’s becoming increasingly technology driven and we’re trying to bust the myth that coding is hard, we want them to develop critical thinking and learn to cooperate to solve problems.”
Ms Jakle said Telstra funded such workshops around Australia and next week would be in Griffith, Leeton, Wagga Wagga, Coleambally and Coolamon.
Henty Public School teacher Emily Watson watched over her pupils who take part in technology labs once a week where everyone has access to an individual computer.
“In the classrooms we have some laptops and some iPads, but we want to buy more,” she said.
That, she explains as she stifles a yawn, is why she got up at 5am to drive from Wagga Wagga to Henty to make loaves of sandwiches for sale at two catering sheds being operated by the school’s Parents and Citizens Association.
“The money raised will go towards getting more technology in the classrooms,” she said.
