by Alex Lawson, Young Adult Librarian
On Monday March 6, Cliff Weaver, an instructor with Code in the Schools, came to the Roland Park Branch to teach seven teens how to build a computer game from scratch with code. In putting together the code to run the game, participants learned vocabulary, concepts, and skills that are useful for any computer programmer.
This class was great for teens who had never coded before. The task itself was simple, and Mr. Weaver was a good instructor. He asked questions like “who can tell me the story of this code?” that made the technical task easy to understand. By the end 
of the class, even the beginners had successfully created a video game.
The class also worked well for the teens with a lot of coding experience. At first they didn’t think the project would be very challenging or interesting, but as the class wore on, those teens were able to engage with the project more deeply by asking questions about the reasoning behind the code that they created. At the end of the class, when the instructor asked everybody what they had learned, one of the more experienced teens admitted that “even when something seems simple, sometimes you still have to fix problems that you can’t see at first.”
This event was part of Teen Tech Week, an annual initiative from the Young Adult Library Services Association, focused on connecting teens with libraries and technology. To read more about this nationwide event, click here for our previous blog post.
Find more after school activities for teens #atthepratt.
steampunk art, as well as more complex projects such as digital scavenger hunts and 3D printing. These activities encourage engagement with all the ways that technology is part of our lives: for navigation, for education and for creation. It’s also just a blast: last year, teens at the Reisterstown Road branch found themselves directing laser beams through a maze against the clock! 
Throughout the month of March 2018, Baltimore-area children in fifth grade and younger may visit any Enoch Pratt Free Library Branch and show their library card to receive a Read to Reef bookmark, while supplies last.
Roland Park’s teen ‘Citizen Scientists’ saw thirty-nine birds over the course of ninety minutes. They also used field guides and an app on the Branch’s iPad to identify six different bird species. Afterwards, Teen Librarian Alex Lawson submitted those observations to Cornell’s online database so that they’ll be available for use by birders and scientists.