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Cowerks, Jersey Shore Tech, and Lakehouse Music Academy have announced their participation in this year’s Code.org “Hour of Code” week.

During this event, to be held on Sunday Dec. 14 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Cowerks in downtown Asbury Park, students will learn from local industry professionals about the types of things they do as computer scientists and what it means to write code.

Following these inspirational stories, students will be encouraged to participate in a hands-on activity where they will use code to help sisters Anna and Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen” as they explore the magic and beauty of ice.

This year’s Hour of Code week runs from Dec. through the 14 and features over 60,000 events worldwide geared towards students as young as four through middle school.

Code.org is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science by making it available in more schools and increasing participation by women and under-represented students of color. Their vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science and believe computer science and computer programming should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] courses like biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.

The nonprofit teamed up with Disney Interactive this year in the hopes of using the popular characters to attract more girls to the event.

By 2020 it is estimated that there will be over a million more science, technology, engineering, and math [STEM] jobs than students enrolled in computer science. Computer science and engineering jobs are not only some of the highest paying, they are growing at two times the national average.

“We’re really excited to bring such a high profile event such as ‘Hour of Code’ to Asbury Park and I think hearing stories from some of our professionals will be really inspirational for the students,” said Cowerks co-founder Danny Croak.

“Programming is quickly becoming a basic job skill and we’re only going to see a greater demand in the coming decades. I think demystifying what programming is and teaching kids at a young age that it’s not all 1’s and 0’s is crucial to growing as a society, ” said co-founder Bret Morgan.

This event is free and geared towards students ages four through thirteen.

Light refreshments will be served. Parents are welcome to attend and students are encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet.

RSVP for the free event at http://boab.co/hourofcodeap.

Cowerks is located on the third floor of the Lakehouse Building at 619 Lake Ave.

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