Apple offers a free curriculum to students who are interested in learning to code called “Everyone Can Code”. The curriculum books are available on Apple Books (formerly iBooks), plus there is a free app that can be downloaded to the iPad called Swift Playgrounds that allows students to try coding on the iPad (students can then graduate to Xcode on a Mac).
Details are available here: https://www.apple.com/education/teaching-code/
I have the app and curriculum resources, but I haven’t had much time to dig into them yet. They do look like a great way to introduce coding to the classroom.
For schools that also want to work with an API to allow their students to get their hands on real-world data in the classroom, a company I do consulting work for (Earth Networks, formerly WeatherBug) offers an API called Sferic API which taps into the Earth Networks weather network (including weather stations installed in schools). Details are available here: https://developer.earthnetworks.com
For classrooms also involved in STEM education that need to infuse real-w0rld weather data into their classroom assignments or incorporate data mining into their coding projects, Earth Networks is teaming up with The GLOBE Program to utilize their data mining features in the classroom. Details are available here: https://www.globe.gov/en I am actually teaching monthly STEM webinars, so any educators who need some insights about integrating weather into the classroom, I can assist with those monthly webinars.
Nathan Parker
