From KUNM, April 23, 2018. Produced with High Country News and the Solutions Journalism Network.
Melrose, New Mexico, population 700, has embraced a statewide science and engineering competition to teach students computer science. In New Mexico, computer science courses are not mandated by the state. Many schools in metropolitan areas offer these courses, but few rural school districts do.
For more than sixteen years, Melrose Municipal Schools have set aside funding and students have worked concessions to pay for teams taking part in the Supercomputing Challenge. Nearly a decade earlier, a Melrose team won the state competition.
Challenge Director David Kratzer said the program can help fill gaps in computer science education and also works to provide outreach to a younger group of students to address the gender gap in computer science jobs. In 2003, he found that about 100 Los Alamos National Laboratory employees were Challenge alumni.