Summer Spotlight: Alejandro Hernandez

Since the summer of 2009, I have been  interning for one of my computer science professors, Diana Franklin, on a new project called Animal Tlatoque. The project is intended to expose underrepresented groups in computer science, such as Latinos and women, to computer science at an early age through an outreach program related to endangered species in Mesoamerica. Last summer another intern and I began implementing the foundation to Animal Tlatoque. We began implementing the main website, created stories and tutorials, and gathered information that the students used during the camp.  In particular, some of my bigger contributions were creating the main logo for the project and learning MySQL, PHP, and CakePHP  to help contribute to the main website. In addition, I learned JavaScript to develop a full web based 2-D scrolling game, similar to Super Mario, where the students can add pictures of their assigned animals to and play with their animal in the game.

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              Moreover, Animal Tlatoque is directed towards middle school students and this summer was the first time the outreach portion of the project took place. There were thirty-five students attending our summer camp this summer here at UC Santa Barbara made possible by Diana Franklin (Computer Science), Phil Conrad (Computer Science) and Gerardo Aldana (Chicano Studies). All the students participated in a variety of lessons and activities, like learning about a Mayan Myth, using computers to research their assigned animals, programming their own Mayan Myth on the computer, and a field trip to the zoo, where they got to learn about endangered animals, Mesoamerica, and the Maya culture. By exposing students to computer science at an early age and in a fun way we hope to remove any barriers that might keep students from wanting to pursue a degree in computer science.

 

Alejandro Hernandez

 

Link to the info website:

http://discover.cs.ucsb.edu/research/grants/bpc10.php

Link to MY GAME for the program:

http://foo.cs.ucsb.edu/alejandro/vpet/games/habitat#