Five out-of-this-world Code Club activities for World Space Week!

World Space Week (3–10 October) is the largest annual space event celebrating science and technology. The UN declared it an annual celebration in 1999 and it provides the perfect opportunity for young Code Club members to have some space-worthy fun whilst developing their coding skills. 

You don’t need to go into orbit to take part in World Space Week, we’ve put together five activities that you can use in your Code Club and beyond.

Moonhack is set for lift off

Moonhack is run by the amazing team at Code Club Australia. This yearly online coding challenge brings children aged 8–15 from around the world, together for a fun week of coding. 

This year, six brand-new projects have been created, providing coders with the opportunity to learn about how satellites, both natural and man-made, are used to help us live more sustainably. Clubs also have the opportunity to learn more about an indigenous Australian community, the Torres Strait Islanders, and how they use the Tagai constellation for navigation. 

Taking part is a fun way to learn coding skills, and participants don’t need any coding experience to get involved, as step-by-step project instructions are provided. 

Projects are also translated into many different languages, thanks to the help of amazing translators from around the world.

Join our space-themed codealong 

If you’re looking for a stellar experience for your Code Club this World Space Week, join Code Club and CoderDojo on Thursday 6 October for our online global codealong.  

For your club to participate, all you need is access to laptops or tablets and an internet connection. Together, we will code a Scratch Weightlessness space game.  No Scratch experience is required, as our expert facilitators, Nuala and Sarah, will guide coders through each step.

This codealong will provide a brilliant opportunity to learn about the block-based programming language, Scratch, and create a game to simulate the effects of weightlessness in space. 

Get ready to send your code to space with Astro Pi Mission Zero

From Thursday 22 September your Code Club can blast their code into space with Astro Pi Mission Zero. This activity offers young people aged 19 and under from an ESA member state, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, or Malta, the chance to have their Python computer program run onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

You can complete Mission Zero in around an hour without any prior programming knowledge, so the project is perfect for first-time Python coders.

Keep an eye on the Astro Pi website on Thursday 22 September to see the exciting changes to this year’s Mission Zero challenge!

Confidence-boosting session pack with stellar resources 

Our first session pack is themed around the Introduction to Scratch project Space talk. If you’re new to Code Club or are restarting your club after a break, this is our go-to resource to help you feel confident. 

Along with a session plan with simple and practical advice, we have also provided three new space-themed unplugged activities to ‘crater’ for your every space whim: Create and colour, I spy, and Memory game. 

For a bit of extraterrestrial activity, why not hand these out towards the end of your Code Club session for World Space Week?

Download this resource from your club’s dashboard.

Gravitate towards our space-themed project collection 

This collection is bound to spark the imagination of coders! Featuring eight space-themed projects that are suitable for both beginners and more advanced coders, learners will have the opportunity to explore weightlessness in space, astronaut reaction times, and use a web service to find the location of the International Space Station. 

Head to your club’s resource page to download our Code Club space project collection and launch your coders’ skills to a whole new level. 

Whatever you get up to this World Space Week, make sure you share with us on social media using the hashtag #MyCodeClub and if you’re lucky, we might send you a Code Club sticker sheet!