Scottish Council for Development & Industry and BT

This innovative project involves training teachers, particularly those who may have lacked confidence to teach computing subjects, to deliver the Tweety Pi programme – a coding and outdoor learning experience which records activity around a bird table.

Aimed at P6 – S2 age groups, the Tweety Pi programme challenges pupils to code a Raspberry Pi, firstly with Scratch and later with Python, to use a passive infrared sensor to detect motion around a bird table, which in turn triggers the camera to take photographs.

This approach to monitoring wildlife often engages teachers who are reticent about coding by giving them a tangible and practical application to focus on. After a successful pilot in 50 schools in Dundee, the Highland, Inverclyde, Moray and North and South Ayrshire, the programme is being extended to a further 30 schools in Dumfries & Galloway, Moray & Orkney which currently have no extracurricular computing provision.

The project also includes the provision of the Barefoot Computing resources through BT Scotland.