Aviva Community Fund provided £20 of match funding
Hedgehog Hackers: Inspiring young minds
Newbury, West Berkshire, United Kingdom
Aim
To inspire young people to appreciate and learn about hedgehogs whilst developing their digital skills
The charity:
Digit<all> is a charity that was founded in February 2022 with the aim of providing digital skills training to young people. Since its inception, Digit<all> has reached over 120,000 young people and has ensured that they have developed their digital skills in an active way. The charity provides training and resources to teachers and community leaders, as well as direct workshops to young people in their school or within their local community. We are seeking funding to continue our mission of empowering young people with the digital skills they need to succeed in today's world. With your support, we can reach even more young people and help them develop the skills they need to thrive. Please consider donating to Digit<all> today and help us make a difference in the lives of young people across the country by raising the importance of nature and their future digital skills.
Find out more about Digit<all> on our website:
Find out more about Hedgehog Hackers on our blog:
View our short video :
Our motivation is:
- 3% of females say a career in technology is their first choice
- 65% of young people will be employed in jobs that currently don't exist
- 11% of boys and 28% of men in the UK are classified as obese
- 9% of girls and 29% of women in the UK are classified as obese
- 90% of jobs in the next 10 years will require some sort of digital skills
- Physical activity has beneficial effects on the brain's structure and function, while concern has mounted over high rates of childhood obesity
- Physical activity has been found to relate to performance across: perceptual skills, intelligence quotient, verbal tests, mathematic tests, memory, developmental level, and academic readiness in all ages from 4-18 years
This is why Digit<all> provide experiences for young people to develop their digital skills whilst being physically active.
The team:
The team at Digit<all> includes CEO, Peter Marshman, previously an assistant headteacher and computing lead in secondary schools and known for his work nationally developing self-efficacy in girls with computer science. Peter is also the Code Week ambassador for the UK, and passionate about increasing the number of young women taking roles in technology and computer science. Matthew Hewlett, the Community and Education Lead at Digit<all> is known for his leadership of computing at both primary and secondary level and work develop strategies and resources with a focus around climate and nature.
You can read more about our team on our website.
Hedgehog Hackers: Inspiring young minds through hedgehog habitats and solving prickly problems
Digit<all> has worked with local communities to create a fun and active STEM experience where children learn about hedgehogs and their habitats through an inspiring coding activity. In this experience the young people:
- Code a micro:bit small programmable device that will detect placed digital hedgehogs in an outdoor space
- Use digital skills to map hedgehogs that they have found
- Code the micro:bit to monitor temperature and sunlight and analyse the data
- Build a hedgehog house
- Position the hedgehog house in the location according to the data they have collected
The children involved in this project were aged between 6 and 7 years and Digit<all> would like to take this tired and tested experience and extend it’s activities to reach many more young people.
The project will enable:
- Children aged between 6-7 years to code physical computing devices monitor environmental conditions and use digital skills to carry out data analysis and mapping.
- The workshops will enable young people to be digitally active – to code inside and explore outside by transmitting signals through collaboration and teamwork.
- The materials will be adapted so that they can be downloaded by teachers and community leaders to use anywhere in the UK, significantly increasing the reach.
- Online 'train the trainer' sessions will be provided for teachers and community leaders who need specialist training to deliver the workshops.
The impact:
Through this programme, we will impact:
- 5400 young people across the UK.
- 330 young people in face-to-face workshops.
- 90 teachers/community leaders across the UK through online professional development.
- 22 teachers in face-to-face workshops also acting as professional development
How the money will be spent:
The charity hopes to raise £14,160.00 to cover:
- 90 micro:bit portable programmable devices for coding workshops
- 40 hedgehog house build boxes
- Project coordination, management and delivery
- Transport for trainers to visit schools
- Production of teaching materials including videos
- Material design and website hosting, training booking application
- Administration for communication with schools and financial admin
- Advertising and marketing for wide UK reach
We are seeking your help to inspire young people to use technology for good, develop their digital skills, and understand the importance of tracking populations of wildlife in their community. With your support, we can provide young people with the skills they need to analyse data, enjoy the outdoor and use technology for good. By empowering young people with digital skills, we can help them become active participants in society and the digital economy. Let's work together to achieve this goal and make a difference in the lives of young people.
The project legacy:
Following the delivery of this project, the following resources will be made available for all on the Digit<all> website These resources will include:
- Videos showing the experiences in action to inspire educators and community leaders to host such an experience
- Recorded training to enable teachers and community leaders to upskill and deliver this experience for their communities
- Downloadable resources including video tutorials, resource slides and worksheets, FAQs and guidance
After the project, the charity will continue to host 'train the trainer' online events for teachers or community leads that may need additional training to have confidence to deliver the sessions in their schools and communities.
Images and videos of the schools activities with young people, along with those captured by the charity working in local schools, will be shared on the charity website over time to provide a collection of inspiring media which will encourage other schools and community groups to promote the use of technology for monitoring and exploring nature.
It is expected that in the initial year 5,400 young people across the UK will have been actively involved in the project. We expect in the following two years to have involved a further 6,700 and 7,700 young people respectively.
Why this project is so important and why we need your help
The project will provide a lens on nature and wildlife, specifically the hedgehogs that live in the UK, for young people who are the future defenders and protectors of these species. They will get to know these species from past generations and use technology to log, communicate, analyse data, and build skills and knowledge to help identify changes in population. This will be carried out through fun activities coding the micro:bit programmable device, learning coding, digital literacy and data science. As children will be coding small wearable devices and then taking them outside in teams, and transmitting data, they will be working together, collaboratively, to build a picture of hedgehog frequencies and species as school and wider local communities.
Environmental sustainability will be built into the project with children learning about how to modify technology to reduce power consumption and how using technology can help them make decisions that are more precise and accurate. Through their exploration with nature they will see the importance as they grow older of being digitally active and developing this message for future generations.
Why is Digit<all> well placed to deliver this project?
The charity has reached over 200,000 young people a in the last year through technology-inspired STEM and coding activities. The charity has a strong network of skilled volunteers, who have worked with young people for over 10 years, and have both the technical knowledge, pedagogy, and enthusiasm to ensure experiences in front of young people are engaging and enjoyable. The charity has already asked local communities if they would love to be involved in the project, and the response has been overwhelming. For schools this is particularly required due to the lack of subject knowledge required for delivering the computing curriculum and being able to tie the necessary knowledge into fun and meaningful contexts for young people.
This project successfully funded on 21st January 2024