We are excited to host Code for Nature challenge again this summer 🎉. Let your creativity and passion for nature shine through your projects! We look forward seeing your creations soon.
What do you love the most about nature —the scent of grass after a gentle rain, the early morning chirping of birds, crystal-clear lakes, deep green forests, or majestic snow-capped mountains? Unfortunately, our world is heading in a troubling direction, with record-breaking heat waves, widespread drought, more intense hurricanes, and the accompanying disappearance of habitats for animals on land, in rivers, and in oceans. What kind of world do you want to live in 20 years, 40 year, or 60 years from now? The good news is, you can play a big role making that happen!
At Create & Learn, we believe that the fundamental goal of learning is to solve real-world problems. So we are hosting a Code for Nature challenge this summer to encourage students to apply what they have learned to raise awareness, protect our nature, help those affected by environmental change, and potentially solve some critical issues. For middle and high school students, it is also a great way to prepare for Congressional App Challenge.
Submissions are due on Saturdays August 23rd at 7pm pacific time. Projects will be evaluated separately for grades 2-5 and grades 6-12, and a total of 10 winners will be selected with 5 from each of the two groups. All winners will be awarded a $15 Amazon gift card. And three special prizes sponsored by Infosys Foundation, Texas Instrument, and Elenco will be awarded to three of the winners as well.
Read on to learn more about the challenge and how to participate.
Students can use any platforms or tools to build stories, games, or apps with a general nature theme. Some examples might include:
And so much more… In particular, we encourage students to uncover and address what has affected their own communities the most.
Winners will be selected through a combination of community voting and evaluation by our teacher experts. Ten winners will each receive a $15 Amazon gift card (see FAQ for details). Students in grades 2–12 are welcome to join. Submit your project by August 23rd, and we will announce the winners by September 10th.
Infosys Foundation USA’s mission is to expand access to computer science and maker education for K–12 students and educators across the USA, while working to digitally upskill all learners for 21st-century technology-enabled opportunities. We invite you to explore the free resource and course offerings on Infosys Springboard USA: bit.ly/InfySpringboard.
Infosys' special prize will be awarded to the project with the most innovative idea for using AI or other technologies.
You don't have to fully implement the AI—presenting the most compelling idea will get you a chance.
Texas Instruments (TI) is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide. The TI-Nspire™ CX II and TI-84 Plus CE Python graphing calculators come with Python preloaded and ready to code with built-in menus and smart features that help beginners get started.
www.education.ti.com/cs
TI’s special prize—a brand-new TI-Nspire CX II calculator—will be awarded to the project with the best innovative idea for using hardware or data in grades 6-12 .
Elenco is known for producing educational STEM products, particularly the popular Snap Circuit sets. We host a very popular monthly event on Snap Circuit. Elenco is sponsoring a Snap Circuit as a special prize and it will be given to a project by grades 2-5 students with the most creative idea on renewables.
These special awards will be selected from among the top 10 projects, all of which will receive a $15 Amazon gift card (see FAQ for details).
Don't miss our last free Code for Nature Workshop for help and inspiration in creating an awesome project!
You may submit projects on your own or with up to two other friends. In other words, the maximum group size is 3. Each student can submit up to 2 projects. Students are not required to have taken any classes with us to submit projects.
Please follow these steps to submit projects:
The world is changing: record-breaking heat waves, widespread drought, intense hurricanes, and the accompanying disappearance of habitats for animals on land, in rivers, and in oceans. Encourage your student to enter our Code for Nature challenge, and apply what they have learned to raise awareness, protect the environment, help those affected by environmental change, and potentially solve environmental issues. Submit your project by August 23rd for a chance to be one of 10 winners to win a $15 Amazon gift card! For middle and highschool students, it is a great way to prepare for Congressional App Challenge as well.
To help students create their projects, we are hosting free live online workshops led by an expert. These workshop will be mostly students driven in that we will brainstorm together to identify local environmental issues students are passionate about, define potential project ideas for the issues identified, figure out what features should be included in projects, and address any coding questions that students might have. So brain your idea, curiosity, or just passion for nature. We will brainstorm and find something you are excited about!
These events will attract many students, so save your spot today. You can submit to the challenge regardless of whether you join the workshop or not.
Build skills to create any project you can dream to help the planet in our popular live online classes:
Scratch Ninja (grades 2 - 5) or Accelerated Scratch (grades 6 - 9)
Canva for Kids (grades 4 - 8)
Mobile Coding for Apps and Games (grades 5 - 10)
Modern Website Design with Wix (grades 5-12)
Python for AI (grades 5 - 12)
Build Your Web with HTML, CSS, and Javascript (grades 6-12)
You can enter up to two projects per student, but each student can only win once.
No, you do not need to be a Create & Learn student to participate. However, when submitting the project, you do need a free Create & Learn account.
Each winning project in the US will have the option of taking a $15 Amazon.com gift card or taking the $15 as class credits. For students outside of the US, we only issue class credits since we are unable to issue gift cards that are not for the Amazon.com US store. For the special prizes, similarly, we can only send it to students within the United States. If a student outside of the US is the winner, we will add another $30 to the class credits and the physical prizes will be sent to the first US based winner.
Yes, absolutely. We very much encourage students working together. A project can include up to 3 students total.
Build skills to create any project you can dream to help the planet.
