“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.” Yoda, Attack of the Clones

Much to the chagrin of my mother, vast hours of my childhood were spent watching the original Star Wars trilogy and building models of the Millennium Falcon with my father.

This early obsession did not fade over time.

As a science teacher, I put it to good use in the classroom. From plastering the walls with inspirational quotes to interjecting some creativity into my lesson plans, Star Wars made quite a number of appearances.

Star Wars grabbed my attention at an early age. It did the same thing for my students.

Before you can teach students, you need to engage them. It’s a lesson that I learned years ago playing a Star Wars related game “The Gungan Frontier.” This ecosystem learning game created by Lucas Learning let me follow the species of Gungans on the Naboo moon of Ohma-D’un. I thought it was fun. Thinking back, I was actually building up my STEM skills.

Today the games have evolved tremendously, but the concept remains the same – engage then learn. In honor of the new Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens,” Hour of Code from code.org is offering students (and adults!) the chance to build “a galaxy with code” using new and old Star Wars characters.

There is an astounding volume of buzz around the opening of, “The Force Awakens,” and I applaud code.org and all the Star Wars folks for leveraging the hype to push for the development of computer science skills. With computer science and IT jobs expected to grow up to 22% over the next few years, this is a critical need.

We need to help both boys and girls find the fun in STEM education in order to fill this projected need. In 2014, women only made up 25% of the computer and mathematical science work force in America. The new Star Wars movie and game both center on two strong women characters – Princess Leia and Rey. I expect that these characters may connect with young ladies a bit better than R2D2. I hope that it will play a role in getting more girls involved in rapidly growing STEM fields!

With the release of, “The Force Awakens,” this week, I can’t help but feel a little sappy. Star Wars played a big role in my sense of wonder about the world and beyond. In many ways, it inspired me to learn. I hope that it does the same for this generation.

If you want to try out this free hour of code lesson for your class, your kids, or yourself you can follow the link here. Just remember, as the great Obi Wan Kenobi once said, “Remember…the Force will be with you, always.”