Why Future Techies Should Embrace Breaking Things

Welcome to AI for Kids! This episode is made for middle grade and up.

Ever wondered how a simple summer program can change the course of your life? This week on AI for Kids, we sit down with Esmeralda "Esme" (pronounced Es-May) Tovar,  the Computer Science Education Manager at the Tech Interactive or The Tech, who shares her incredible and somewhat serendipitous journey into the world of computer science education.

From her early love of math and science to being inspired by her self-taught coder uncle, Esme's story is filled with moments of curiosity and discovery. She opens up about the joys of experimentation, the importance of fixing things when they break, and how the Tech Interactive creates hands-on experiences that make STEM approachable and fun for kids. Esme even breaks down complex topics like circuitry into simple, digestible concepts that anyone can understand, making this a must-listen episode for budding tech enthusiasts.

But that's not all! We also dive into how educators are weaving computational thinking and computer science into their classrooms in innovative ways. Picture kindergarteners analyzing data on endangered animals or students using interactive elements to learn about the moon's phases—Esme shares these and more exciting examples. 

Plus, we play a fun segment called Tech Trivia, covering fascinating historical milestones in coding languages and computer science. To wrap things up, we underscore the importance of STEM education for children and share numerous ways for kids to get involved, from local science centers to online resources. 

Don’t miss our entertaining game of "Two Truths and a Dream," where Esme reveals her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, along with some heartfelt advice for aspiring computer scientists.

Chapter Markers:

• 0:00 AI and Computer Science for Kids
• 11:51 Exploring Technology and Education Integration
• 15:28 Encouraging STEM Education and Exploration

Resources:
The Tech Interactive
Esmeralda "Esme" Tovar's LinkedIn

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the AI for Kids podcast, where playtime, learning and creating collide bit by bit. Ever wonder how your phone recognizes your face. How does a game learn to get harder as you get better? This is AI. This podcast is designed for kids like you and your human parents, making the complex world of AI easy to understand and, most importantly, fun. So are you ready to unlock the mysteries of artificial intelligence? Subscribe and join us on AI for Kids. Hi everyone, welcome back to AI for Kids. Today we have a wonderful guest. Please welcome Esme Tovar. She is the Computer Science Education Manager at the Tech Interactive. I know you're wondering what is a Tech Interactive? Don't worry, esme is going to tell us about it today. Esme, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in computer science education?

Speaker 2: 0:53

Yeah, definitely. Hi everyone. So I'm Esme and my journey into computer science was actually an accidental one. I have always enjoyed learning and, overall, just getting better in whatever I'm doing. So when I moved to the Bay Area so that's in California and we're thinking about like the San Francisco, san Jose area to teach, I wanted to be the best teacher that I could be.

Speaker 2: 1:16

When I was there and I was learning on how to bring hands-on STEM activities to my students and there was a program actually at the Tech Interactive for teachers where we were learning on how to do that. However, at the time it was only mechanical engineering, so it was just that hands-on building, but they were working with San Jose State University to think about computer science. So that summer I spent two weeks learning how to code and how to incorporate it into what I was teaching, and I vividly remember my brain hurting for several days. However, once I figured out that it was all based on logic, it just started to click and, honestly, it was then when I realized that I really love computer science and that's really where my journey began, and now I just love being able to have the opportunity to bring CS experiences into the classroom.

Speaker 1: 2:09

That is so cool. When you were a kid was computer science or technology even in your mind. I know you said you kind of got here on accident, but what was your favorite subject or thing you were thinking about as a kid Actually, my favorite subjects were always math and science.

Speaker 2: 2:23

So I loved numbers and I love figuring out how things work. However, technology was not. I didn't even know what computer science was. You know, computers were coming out to, the internet was a little bit of a thing, but it was still dial up, so nothing about like Wi-Fi and whatnot. However, you know, I did have a late uncle of mine who taught himself how to code. He had a business, so he had to create his own website. So this was before. You know, there were templates and whatnot, and I was always afraid of thinking that I was going to break the computer. However, he always encouraged me in being like don't worry about it. He's like you're not going to break the computer, we'll fix it. So, even though he had no formal education, he was definitely very passionate and I think because of his advice of like don't worry about it, we'll fix it, it kind of allowed me to explore and be like well, we can try and fix things.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I absolutely love that and I love the idea of we can fix it, because that like goes with the whole pattern of testing it out trying it out, if it breaks, you're gonna figure out how to fix it, so so I love that. If you could choose any superpower, what would it be and why?

Speaker 2: 3:28

There are so many good superpowers, I think I would say teleportation, and that is probably because I love to travel and explore different cultures and their histories and the art. It's just, the world is so rich, you know that we're just one little segment.

Speaker 1: 3:45

So that's what I would do. I love it, so let's teleport the listeners to the Tech Interactive, at least through this podcast. Can you explain what it is and what you do there?

Speaker 2: 3:56

Yeah, so the Tech Interactive is a hands-on science center in downtown San Jose and essentially, if you can think of a place where you can literally tinker and explore to your heart's content, that's what that is. And what I love about the tech is that you learn about STEM so science, technology, engineering and math in a fun and exploratory way. So one of my favorite exhibits there, or play spaces, is Social Robots, and that's where you get to build a robot using blocks and power sewers, so you really have an ability to learn about circuitry and maybe a little bit about robotics. You also have the opportunity to explore your artistic side, so you can create art with cabbage inks which who would have thought right? And learn about basic biological concepts. So, literally, the tech is a place where you can just explore science in a hands-on way. You're not in a lab, but you're all scientists doing things and figuring out how things work.

Speaker 1: 4:58

That is so cool. There was one word you used that I'm not sure if all of our audience members know, and that's circuitry. Could you explain what that means?

Speaker 2: 5:06

Yeah, so circuitry is essentially when two things are being connected to each other. So usually there's an input and an output, and an input is usually some sort of action that needs to happen. So a lot of the times, if we think of light switches at home, usually how do you turn on a light at home?

Speaker 1: 5:29

You would turn on the switch so that the input would be the switch and then your output would actually be the light coming on. I love that definition. Like that was the easiest way to understand it, even as an adult who does understand at least some of that. I'd love that example. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, one of the things that's cool about your career is that you did say you started teaching. You've actually developed learning models for data science, computer science, that focus on computational thinking. I have a lot of big words I just threw in there, so we're going to go one at a time.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Can you explain data science, data science is the ability to be able to collect or use information to tell a story. So the way I think about it is we do this all the time, probably without even realizing it. You know, I have two little nephews and we're thinking about, like, hosting a birthday party and they want to kind of please all of their friends. Right, if we're thinking about making sure that we have everyone's favorite type of cookie and yours is an oatmeal chocolate chip, you can't assume that everyone's favorite cookie is going to be an oatmeal chocolate chip, right? So the best way to figure out how to have the cookies that your friends are going to like, what are you going to do? Survey? Yeah, exactly A survey.

Speaker 2: 6:37

So you might be like hey, John, what's your favorite kind of cookie? They might be like well, my favorite kind of cookie is a chocolate chip. And then maybe you might ask Laura what her favorite type of cookie. Maybe it's not a cookie, maybe it's a brownie. So you end up gathering all of this information to be able to tell a story, and then, essentially, you come back to your parents and you're like, hey, this is what I want to do, and you give them that pitch, you tell that story as to why you want to have everyone's favorite cookies there and in reality, this is just a very simple example. But data is in everything that we do, everything from how often your favorite toy store gets restocked with your favorite toys.

Speaker 2: 7:18

To predicting what the weather will be like for the next couple of days. And even athletes they use data to get better at the games they're playing.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Oh yeah, now you've given like an amazing answer to data science, and I just love the way you broke that down in a way that I, as an individual who's an adult as well as a kid, could easily take that and understand the concept. I'm gonna ask another question for you to explain to us what about computer science? How do you explain it in a way a kid can understand?

Speaker 2: 7:46

Yeah, so computer science is essentially for us here at the tech is. We're thinking about it as how is it that you can think like a computer scientist? And usually computer scientists are those individuals who end up creating programs, right, that benefit a lot of our lives. Maybe you use Google Docs at school and whatnot. So on the back end, right, there's a lot of code or there's a program that's written that allows you to do all of that. So it's just an opportunity to really learn the ins and outs of technology and specific computers.

Speaker 1: 8:23

And then the last one for this round of questioning is how would you explain computational thinking in a way that a kid can understand? Yeah, this one is hard for me, so I'm listening to learn from you.

Speaker 2: 8:34

Yeah, computational thinking is actually one of my favorites and the way I best can explain this is the foundation. So think about computational thinking as a way to solve problems. Computational thinking as a way to solve problems, and here at the Tech we say that you can solve problems using computational thinking or I'm going to use CT for short in four main ways, and that's obstruction, algorithms, patterns and decomposition, and I know those are very big words so I can definitely go through and describe what each one means.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Yeah, feel free to do like the short version. They know algorithms because one of our episodes was A is for algorithm, because we're going through the ABCs of AI. But feel free to break those down and explain each one.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Yeah. So abstraction is just focusing on that big picture and what's important and the best way to explain it is little kids. If you're seeing how they're learning, they're the best at that. For example, if your favorite color is blue and you saw the color navy, or you saw the color baby blue and if I was just to ask you in general, hey, what color is it? You will more than likely say that it's blue.

Speaker 2: 9:40

Maps are another great example of abstraction. If I was to ask you to draw a map from your school to your house, I'm certain you're not going to draw every single house that's on the way or every business. You're just going to draw, kind of, the major streets that are going to get you there. I'll go on to patterns. Okay, and this is determining if something repeats or it doesn't, and it's important to notice these things right. So when you're playing a game, usually you follow a set of rules and patterns. For example, in Monopoly, every time you pass Go, you collect money. So that's a pattern. And then decomposition is. This just means you're breaking down a problem into smaller pieces. So if you're familiar with Legos, most boxes have several different bags that have broken down the model into phases for you to build. A lot of the times you start either with the center or whatever that basis, and then you continue to add on to that.

Speaker 1: 10:32

So in breaking that down, you've actually shared ways that kids can use computational thinking in their everyday lives. Is there anything else you wanted to add to that on how they should think about it when they're interacting with this on a regular basis?

Speaker 2: 10:45

I would say be aware of it, call it out, name it as you're doing those things, because that means you're thinking like a computer scientist. You're really thinking about what are those different steps that you're using to actually solve this problem? You know like I'm thinking we all love to clean our rooms, right? Maybe not, probably not, but at the end of the day, you can think like a computer scientist by breaking down the problem and following steps. So you being able to acknowledge and to realize that you're doing that already sets you up for success.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Thank you for that. So this is the AI for Kids podcast, and there's this thing called data science you talked to us about and computer science. How do they work with AI?

Speaker 2: 11:31

Ooh, that's an excellent question. Both are actually critical to AI and essentially, you have to create a computer program, so that's where the computer science comes in, and that is based on data. Right, so that's where your data science comes in. And then it creates an algorithm and starts predicting based on the data or information it has.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And I know you are used to working closely with a lot of local teachers to talk about integrating some of these things into the classroom, like computational thinking, computer science. Can you share a fun example of how a teacher has done this? Oh?

Speaker 2: 12:04

my goodness, there's so many. A lot of our teachers are just so amazing. This oh my goodness, there's so many. A lot of our teachers are just so amazing. Two of my favorites are one of them was thinking about the moon and how it changes phases. So one of the teachers was able to create a program having the different phases of the moon. You were able to create a slider, so then it was going through and students, they could add music to it or sound, they could add text to it. That was one of my favorites. The other one was and it was actually done by a kindergarten class was they were looking at endangered animals and they were looking at data and they were really thinking about hey, what is it that we can do? How can we bring awareness and take action? The littlest of learners can engage in these concepts.

Speaker 1: 12:50

If I'm a student and I want my teachers to also bring some of this stuff into their lessons, how would I go about doing that?

Speaker 2: 12:57

Honestly, you are the biggest advocates. Kids are their biggest own advocates. If you wanna have more computer science lessons in your class, ask your teacher. I know from teaching personally if students would come in and are really excited about a project or something that they have done. Then I see that engagement and I'm like great, let's incorporate that, because we want to make sure that you all have the skills for the future.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Oh yeah, we're gonna take a break from questions to jump to a fun segment. We have a quick game we call Tech Trivia. Here I'll ask you some fun questions about technology and you got to try to answer them as quickly as you can. Listeners also make sure you're listening to answer the questions as well. We're going to start with the first question. Are you ready? Let's do it. What was the first computer coding language?

Speaker 2: 13:51

Ooh well, maybe it's not a language, but the first machine algorithm was actually created by Ada Lovelace in the 1800s, so that's a while ago.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Oh yeah, that is definitely when the first machine algorithm was created. During that time period, when I was looking at the answer, there was two options that came up. One was called Fortran. Fortran is still used today. That was the one that was more mainstream. But then there was another one that was called probably going to mess this name up Planco Cool, and so that one's considered the first one technically, but Fortran is the one that also gets a lot of credit. So any of the things we just mentioned kids are a lot of different languages and algorithms and coding languages as well. All right, are you ready for the second question? Let's do it. What year was computer science developed?

Speaker 2: 14:35

Again, I think it depends on what is meant by this. I think if we're talking about, like, the degree or the discipline in general, then it would have to be the early 1960s.

Speaker 1: 14:46

Yep, exactly right. Like you said, there were some nuance behind it. So it began showing up in academia in the 1950s to 60s, but the first time the actual term was used or coined was in 1961, by George Forsythe, who came up with the term computer science. So great job there. And then last one. I probably should have started with this one first, but, and then work to the more difficult ones. But what is a popular programming language that starts with a P Python? Yes, python is the answer. Thank you so much. Great job. Great job, you got all three right. You are the second of all my interviewees to get all three right. So great job, you got all three right. You are the second of all my interviewees to get all three right. So great job, all right. So why is it important for kids to have access to STEM education? How can they get involved with this?

Speaker 2: 15:35

The reality is, stem education is a benefit for everyone, not just one individual. Everyone can benefit from it, and it's important that everyone normalizes it early on, because then you become engaged and you want to do it, you know, in the future and it's important to keep that curiosity alive. There are a ton of programs out there that offer, you know, some, everything from robotics to even in art. Again, I had talked about earlier how the tech interactive includes art with cabbage ink. So if you're really curious about how to do that, you can go to the tech's website and download that activity and you're essentially using biology right to create these pigments, and then what are you going to do with those pigments? Then you can draw and create art. So, honestly, if you're curious, just dig deep and learn about it and continue just learning and trying things you know we have talked about. You can't really break anything. Oh yeah, that's really what STEM is all about. It's just trying to fix things and using science or engineering or math or technology to be able to do that.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Can you tell us a little bit more about a project you're really excited about right now to do?

Speaker 2: 16:48

that. Can you tell us a little bit more about a project you're really excited about right now? Yeah, so right now I have been working very closely with San Jose State University, so I had mentioned before that they were the ones that kind of helped the tech create their computer science. And I'm really excited about that because what we're doing is we're really working with other faculty members there and we're using their research. So again, that real world, what is it that they're doing it? And we're bringing it to high school students, high school students really realizing that you're not too young to get started on this right, that you can do this research, that it is totally attainable. That's always my goal to make sure that anyone can feel like they can do anything.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Oh, I love it For folks who are in your local area. How can they get involved? Or their parents learn more and get involved?

Speaker 2: 17:36

Well, if you're in the area, I would say, hey, visit the tech. You know, if you're visiting the Bay Area, take a trip to the tech. It's not going to disappoint, you're going to have a lot of fun. There's always a ton of hands-on activities that engages kids, but also parents Parents you don't have to sit on the sidelines. Otherwise, I would say, find your local science center. There are so many out there. Find an opportunity for you to just try on these science activities at your local science center. Otherwise, I would say, you can bring the science to your own house. Right? You can think about problems that you want to address and find opportunities to do. A hands-on project Could be building, or maybe it could be creating a program to solve that problem.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Oh, that's so cool. I love that you talked about actually bringing it into folks' home and also seeking out science centers. I think sometimes we forget that those things tend to be in our area or local or nearby, or libraries may also have the opportunity to have these type of programs in them, so literally looking around and seeing what's there. So thank you for that. I want to jump us into another fun segment, so this one allows us to talk about your bio in a fun way. So it's called Two Truths and a Dream. The way it works is you're going to tell us two true facts about your career and then one dream job that you had as a kid, and then we're going to guess me as well as the listeners are going to guess which one is the dream. So again, two facts and one dream, and then I'm going to think through each one. Try not to pick anything that was in your bio, if you can. If not, totally fine, the kids can play at home. But two facts and a dream.

Speaker 2: 19:13

I have been a guest on a Spanish podcast. I have taught physiology before, and another one would be wanted to be an astronaut.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Okay, so the three are guests on a Spanish podcast, taught physiology. And then the third was wanting to be an astronaut. Okay, let's think, kids, go ahead and think about your answers. What do you think the dream job is? This was a little bit hard because you were a teacher. So let me start with the first one. Guests on a Spanish podcast could be likely. So that may be true, just based on what I know about you as an individual in my research. So that's probably true. The second one is physiology. I don't know, but I also know you're a teacher, so that could be it.

Speaker 1: 19:59

And then the astronaut piece. I'm thinking dream may be astronaut only because you kind of said you fell into some of the computer science and technology stuff. So I'm going to say your dream is to be an astronaut. Yes, yes, kids, hopefully you saw me using some problem solving there to try to figure out which one was right, and hopefully you were also able to go through that. Before we head out Esme, do you have any advice for the kids you wanna learn or who wanna learn more about computer science and computational thinking?

Speaker 2: 20:29

Well, I would say continue to dream big If you're curious about technology. I would adhere to my late uncle's words of do it. You're not gonna break it, We'll find a way to fix it right, Make use of it and make a world that is better than what it was. So we need your voice and hopefully you all might be interested in computer science or a version of it. So it could be computer science, it could be data science, maybe AI. So use technology for good.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners? Is there?

Speaker 2: 21:03

anything else you want to share with our listeners. I'm just hopeful that you all will see this as an opportunity to realize that, even though I had no technology experience or computer science experience, you can still be in this field. We need everyone. So, even though I had no formal training behind it or to start with right, I still was able to find a passion and a love for it. So don't ever get discouraged. Keep trying until you accomplish what it is that you want to do.

Speaker 1: 21:35

And that's such an amazing way to wrap up today. Thank you all so much for joining us today and thank you, esme, for joining us as well and thanks to all the listeners for continuing to tune in. Don't forget to subscribe to the AI for Kids podcast and stay curious. Thank you for joining us as we explore the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Don't keep this adventure to yourself. Download it, share it with your friends and let everyone else in on the fun. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or on YouTube. See you next time on AI for Kids.