This week, The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, partnered with Actua, its network member at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Engineering, Ladies Learning Code and Google to present Code on the Hill, a day designed to help celebrate Science Odyssey week and to ignite young Canadians’ curiosity about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and coding.

Grade four students from a local elementary school piled into Parliament Hill's beautiful East Block Courtyard where they spent the morning learning about 3D printing and interactive art with Scratch and MaKey MaKey. Between workshops, the students explored virtual reality with Google Cardboard Expeditions, where they got to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, swim underwater in the Galápagos, view all of Toronto from the top of the CN tower, and visit the White House in Washington. 

Thank you to Google Canada for sponsoring the event, and to the University of Ottawa Faculty of Engineering for bringing its maker mobile and staff, Brandon Renelli and Danielle Taillon, who expertly engaged these students in exciting, hands-on digital technology, and inspiring them to become the next generation of innovators.