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Ask HN: What do you present to children on career day?

4 points by badrequest ↗ HN
A teacher I know in a small town in Texas, has invited me to speak to 3rd-5th graders about what I do for a living as a software engineer. I feel comfortable talking about what I do day-to-day with adults who aren't technical, but I'd like to show the kids how cool and powerful programming can be to get them excited to learn on their own.

Some colleagues suggested using Scratch, but I'm inclined against it because I'd rather show them something in a language they could get paid to write. My first guess was to build some Selenium stuff in Python that would drive a browser, because that blew my adult mind when I first saw it, but everybody I've suggested that to has said it's lame, so I need ideas.

Ultimately I'd like to leave at least some of the kids with the impression that learning to write software is a generally applicable skill that isn't restricted to phone apps and games, and that it doesn't necessarily pigeonhole you into a specific career.

3 comments

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awat
I’ve had some success with working backwards. Starting with an application they probably already like and have affinity to and then explaining that the magic is done through understanding this concept etc. I’ve given a presentation similar to that from a Linux Admins perspective to Jr. High kids and they seemed to like it.
cimmanom
I agree with this. Start with something that works, and then show them how they can tweak it and customize it (heck, that's how a lot of us learned web development 20 years ago).

If you don't want to show them games, maybe something like a fractal graphic generator or an N-body simulator might work? Or maybe there's something they're studying in science or social studies or whatnot that you could relate a program to?

rojoroboto
I've participated in career days before and it was a lot of fun. The big thing to remember is: keep things concrete. Use stories and visual aids with concrete examples.

To really keep their attention, a presentation or interactive booth that let's them participate could help here. For the sake of simplicity, imagine a mad-lib style story through problem solving that allowed them to put in funny words for nouns, verbs, and adjectives while you tell a story of solving a problem with programmatic thinking.

You'll be able to structure it the same, but the novelty of video games, memes, and music references that will get laughs and will keep them engaged.