Quincy University’s Computer Science Department, in collaboration with QAVTC, recently awarded Computer Science Mini-Grants to promote local and regional high school computer science education. Grants were awarded to participants of the 2016 QU CS4HS summer workshop so participants could continue practicing what they learned in the workshop. The Google CS4HS grant and the Tides Foundation funded the workshops and grants.

Funded high schools include: Routt Catholic High School, Limestone Community High School, Liberty CUSD #2, Quincy Junior High School, Unity High School, Payson Seymour Junior High School and Payson Seymour High School. The grant will be used by each school to explore new hardware, including Parrot mini drones, Sphero SPRK+, Lego Mindstorms EV3, and open source software such as Scratch and MIT App Inventor.

Computer science develops students’ computational and critical thinking skills and shows them how to create, not simply use, new technologies. This fundamental knowledge is needed to prepare students for the 21st century, regardless of their ultimate field of study or occupation. QU CS has been dedicated to cultivate computing related talent and nurture innovation among young generations around its region.

QU’s Computer Science Department has also received Google Cloud Platform credits via the Google Cloud Platform Education Grants program. This program offers free Cloud Platform credits for computer science courses in higher education. It is designed to prepare students for Cloud Computing. Students are given free credits and the ability to learn on the leading cloud platform. On Google Cloud Platform, students will find all the tools necessary to build a wide range of applications and have access to the same infrastructure, data analytics, and machine learning that Google uses.