OC Coder's Second Annual Hour of Code

On December 7th, the beginning of the national Computer Science Education Week, OC Coder hosted its second annual Hour of Code. Classrooms were decorated with motivational quotes from President Barack Obama and many influential tech CEOs. There were two sessions this year, with the first session teaching languages including Scratch, Python, Java, Blockly, and Lightbot. The second session helped with AP Computer Science, and also taught Scratch, JavaScript, Python, and Swift.

Scratch was taught using the popular Angry Birds characters and students created two simple games using blocks in Scratch, including if statements, variables, costumes, looks, motions, and more. In Python Code Combat, kids enjoyed learning Python through an interactive game. They learned to write code to issue commands to a character to complete a variety of tasks, including avoid the spikes, defend the village, build a fence, and much more. In Java, students used Codecademy to introduce them to loops, if-else statements and other programming logic. Blockly was a class that transitioned students from blocks of code introduced by Scratch and into typing out lines of code in JavaScript. Lightbot was our computational thinking class to help start students learn logic before more abstract code. AP Computer Science helped students taking the class, or planning the class with any questions they had about the course. Swift was one of the new languages taught this year at Hour of Code. Most of the students had prior programming experience and were eager to learn how to make iOS applications.

Overall, OC Coder’s second annual Hour of Code was a huge success. 17 high school volunteers and lead teachers contributed to the event, where over 120 students were able to build and cultivate their passion for computer science.

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2018 OC Math Circle Thanksgiving Math Tournament

On Sunday, November 4, 2018, Orange County Math Circle (OCMC) held its Thanksgiving Math tournament from 12:30-4:30PM at Sage Hill School. An annual event, the Thanksgiving Tournament invites students in grades 3-6 to participate in a three-round math tournament. Modelled after the popular MATHCOUNTS tournament, the Thanksgiving Tournament includes similar individual and team trounds, with awards for the top six individuals and the top two teams in each grade. Yet, what makes the Thanksgiving Tournament special is its activity round -- a fun, math-based game round meant to further engage and entertain the younger audience. "The tournament stimulates kids' minds, it gives them a competitive spirit, and my kids love math, so it is a fun time for them. I hope through this tournament my children will grow their continuous love for math and pursue the beautiful subject; if they win something, that's just icing on the cake," said Dr. Aakash Ahuja, whose children at

Science Fun Night
written by:Pranav Moudgalya

Ready to share their passion for STEM and science, OC Science volunteers eagerly gathered at Ardent Academy on October 13, 2017, prepared to host their first ever Meteorology Fun Night of the year. Excited to help young minds learn about various principles of meteorology in a meaningful and exciting way, hands-on activities and interactive learning took precedence at this bi-monthly event. With glistening smiles and effulgent passion, volunteers enthusiastically ushered students into an activity room to carry out the various experiments they had planned. Activities and experiments such as the “Tsunami Model” and “Rain Clouds” were a huge hit! The tsunami models showed students how natural disasters occur when forces of nature act upon coastlines. Students participated in creating a realistic diorama of a shoreline, being drastically altered as a direct result of tsunamis. Other events such as “Rain Clouds” used everyday items like shaving cream and food coloring to conv

Year In Review

Math for Service had a wonderful 2017! Thank you to everyone who volunteered or participated at our events in the past year. Read on for a recap of what each MfS organization was up to in 2017: OC Math Circle started up its guest lecture series again with a talk on prime numbers by Dr. Daqing Wan and Jerry Li. OCMC's High School Math Club team also attended the Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition. They hosted the Thanksgiving Math Tournament in November, brought the AMC 8 test to over 200 local students, and successfully continued offering regular events, including Elementary School Math Club, Middle School Math Club, High School Math Club, Santa Ana Math Club meetings, and Math Fun Nights. OCMC is looking forward to collaborating with the World Cube Association for another Rubik's Cube Tournament in 2018. Click here to visit OCMC's website . OC Scholar expanded its journalism series for students in grade 6-8 to cover a broader range of topics, including &quo

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