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Lutacaga Joins Scratch Education Collaborative

Lutacaga has joined the Scratch Education Collaborative. We’re excited to announce that we’re a part of the #ScratchEducationCollaborative. We’ll be collaborating with Scratch and organizations around the world to support learners from historically marginalized communities in developing their confidence with creative computing.

 

Scratch, the world’s largest coding community for young people, announced the 41 organizations selected to participate in the first year of the Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC). The SEC is a powerful network of organizations across the world focused on supporting learners from historically marginalized communities in developing their confidence with creative computing.

 

The SEC met for the first time on July 19, bringing together organizations from 13 countries around the world. The meeting explored topics from the importance of building trust with your program participants to the power of Scratch as a storytelling tool.

 

During the meeting, Xavier Raimundo of the Creative Community Learning Space Action Partners in Santa Bárbara, Brazil shared how his community has faced challenges from poverty, limited access to technology, and difficulty sourcing materials like cardboard and batteries due to the COVID-19 crisis. Despite these obstacles, his small but dedicated team of volunteers have still been able to engage local students in creative computing. Xavier shared his hope that the partnerships his organization is making through the SEC will open the door for them to have more opportunities, volunteers, and resources, so they can reach even more young people in their area.

 

In the first year of the SEC, the Scratch Foundation will be hosting workshops focused on topics like creative coding, equity, and community building; leading gatherings for SEC members to connect and collaborate with each other and the Scratch Team; and helping each organization develop an Equity Toolkit that will support them as they grow and scale their support for the learners in their community.

 

“We look forward to collaborating and engaging with the SEC’s global network of organizations to enhance, develop, and provide HUSD students and their families equity-centered creative computing resources, especially for our students whose promise and genius often get overlooked by outward markers like poverty or language levels,” said Francisco Gallardo of Hayward Unified School District in Hayward, California. “We know [the] SEC will help create learning opportunities to better support and cultivate equitable representation for the next generation of STEAM leaders and educators.”

 

The SEC will be supported with a $5 million grant from Google.org, building on work Scratch and Google.org began in Chicago Public Schools. In 2019, Scratch and the Office of Computer Science in Chicago Public Schools hosted Family Creative Coding Nights at New Chance Fund elementary schools so that students and their families could come together and create using code.

 

“Our work in Chicago Public Schools was an important reminder that we can accomplish amazing things when we partner with local organizations that understand their own community’s needs,” said Shawna Young, Executive Director of the Scratch Foundation. “That’s why we're so excited to collaborate with and learn from the organizations in the Scratch Education Collaborative, who are already doing incredible work to bring creative computing to young people in their own communities around the world.”

 

Below is the full list of organizations and partners participating in year one of the SEC:

Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program – AK, USA

Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub – AR, USA

BootUp PD – UT, USA

Bridges to Science – TX, USA

Center for Cyber Education at Mississippi State University – MS, USA

Creative Community Learning Brasil Space Action Partners / Projeto Social Ação Parceiros – Santa Bárbara, Brazil

Code Club Australia – Sydney, Australia

CodeCrew – Memphis, TN, USA

Deaf Kids Code – NYC, NY, USA

Deaf Technology Foundation – Jos, Nigeria

Digital Harbor Foundation – Baltimore, MD, USA

Faculty of Education Team at University of Johannesburg – Johannesburg, South Africa

Hayward Unified School District – Hayward, CA, USA

Humble Independent School District (ISD) – Humble, TX, USA

iamtheCODE – Guildford, UK

ILCE Instituto Latino Americano de la Comunicación Educativa – México City, MX

Kids Code Jeunesse – Montréal, Canada

Lomie G. Heard Elementary School – Clark County School District, NV, USA

Lutacaga Elementary – Othello School District, WA, USA

Makerere Innovation Society – Uganda

Mouse – NYC, NY, USA

National Society of Black Engineers – USA

NEFSTEM Center, University of North Florida – FL, USA

New York City Department of Education – CSforAllNYC – NYC, NY, USA

New York Hall of Science – NYC, NY, USA

Odyssey Educational Foundation – Nigeria

Play Pattern – Princeton, NJ, USA

Quest Alliance – Bengaluru, India

Schoolnet South Africa – Johannesburg, South Africa

Sistema THEAD – Barcelona, Spain

Sisters of Code – Phnom Penh, Cambodia

STEAMLabs Africa – Nairobi, Kenya

STEM Coding Lab – Pittsburgh, PA, USA

STEM Impact Center Kenya – Nairobi, Kenya

Streetlight Schools – Johannesburg, South Africa

Tanner Elementary – Chicago Public Schools, IL, USA

Teachathon Foundation – Lagos, Nigeria

UdiGitalEdu – Girona, Spain

Ulnooweg – Digital Mi’kmaq – Halifax, Nova Scotia

WeTeach_CS, Center for Cyber Education at University of Texas Austin – USA

Youth for Technology Foundation – Nigeria and Kenya

 

Partnering Organizations:

Raspberry Pi Foundation – Cambridge, UK

Stanford d. School – Stanford, CA, USA

Chicago Public Schools – IL, USA

Micro:bit Educational Foundation – UK

STEM Nola – New Orleans, LA, USA

Brazilian Creative Learning Network (BCLN) – Brazil

The Tinkering Studio – San Francisco, CA, USA


About Scratch

With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.

Scratch is designed, developed, and moderated by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organization. It is provided free of charge.