An excellent example as to why we need more computer education in public schools

We should be seeing more stories like this. Computer science in today's public schools is something that is severely under-rated. I would love to see electives such as python, xml, and the like following a required computer class in public schools.

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

Isabell's idea: Proving green girl geeks are cool

Rory Cellan-Jones | 15:13 UK time, Thursday, 30 September 2010

A 16-year-old who turned up at a hacking event a couple of months ago may just have achieved two great things. If Isabell Long's idea works, it could make a major contribution to getting Whitehall to cut its energy use.

What's more, she could convince others that messing about with software and data is not a sad activity undertaken only by teenage boys who need to get out more, but is in fact really rather cool.

Isabell Long at Young Rewired State, 2010

She turned up at an event called Young Rewired State, where 15-to-18-year-old software developers - and yes, there are plenty of them - get the chance to work with government data to create something useful.

Isabell's idea reflected her green interests. She had spotted that various government departments were now publishing data about their own energy use, but it was spread over a number of different websites.

She decided to gather it all together in one place and create a Whitehall energy league table so that the public could see who really was making an effort.

Isabell told me:

"I started coding last year; I really love it and the whole community around it. I think there needs to be far more awareness in schools - they should teach coding at GCSE. It's not just for geeks and I hope to be a developer later on."

After a few weeks of toing and froing and general Whitehall head-scratching, it has now been put at the centre of David Cameron's energy challenge. You can see her idea, GovSpark, right here.

But will another Isabell turn up next year to prove that girl - and boy - geeks can help save public money? Only if someone scrapes together enough funding to make it happen. Read more at www.bbc.co.uk

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/blvy