Do 8-year-olds need to learn computer programming in summer camp?
Experts are divided over whether summer camps in the US are right to add computer programming to the list of activities
Eight-year-old Claire Dormanen assumed her role as a summer camper last month in many traditional ways: she wore a comfy T-shirt and shorts and ran frantically to escape elimination during a game of dodgeball.
But Claire also added a new activity to her regular camp schedule this year: computer coding. For three hours on a recent Friday, campers built creatures out of Lego and then wrote computer programs to make them move.
"This is where the world is going," says Claire's mother, Audrey Dormanen, who enrolled her daughter in the full day sports/coding combination camp at Code Play Learn, a business in Oak Park, in the US state of Illinois. "It's embracing technology and embracing what's going to be core to your life."
Coding, once reserved for students aspiring to work in the tech industry, has gone mainstream this summer across the Chicago area as several traditional camps have added lessons in computer programming as a new option next to arts and crafts, soccer and rock climbing.
Camp directors say including coding in traditional summer programmes gives students much-needed exposure to digital concepts, while meeting demand from parents eager to expose their children to the latest technology and potential careers in the field of STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
"So many people are so excited about it, it's like the first thing they ask about on an inquiry call," says Sara Ferguson, director of the River Forest site for Steve and Kate's Camp, which added coding studios to all five of its locations across the Chicago area this summer.