1 of 13

ELIA GJIKA

. . .

Environment Guide

Code for Albania; Y1 2020-2021

2 of 13

  • Elia Gjika
  • 10th Grade
  • GDQ International School

#Tech4Good

#ProtectingTheEnvironmentIsAboutYou

3 of 13

Idea

  • Fires in California -> Climate Change -> “Environment Guide”
  • Teach the effects of Climate Change ; Bring Awareness
  • Working on the “Anderva” app on a block-based app-builder, I wanted to explore how to develop something similar in a real, professional language like Python

4 of 13

How is it unique?

  • Interactive
  • First Albanian environmental-knowledge quiz on the web *(prototype is in English, but translatable to Albanian)
  • Impactful
  • Insightful (Self-Evaluation)
  • Short, memorizable facts

5 of 13

Application to real life?

  • Integrate into a Web-Page (similar to National Geographic’s web-quizzes)
  • Develop into a computer game with more gamification (add levels + other features)
  • Teach young Albanian kids about environmental issues in an attractive way

Similar to the English NASA version ->

6 of 13

Functions to draw the background :

Building the Quiz’s question format :

7 of 13

Setting up the question alternative boxes :

Checking if the user’s answer is correct :

8 of 13

Computer Science features

  • Loops (ie. draw the petal of the flower 9 times)
  • Conditional Statements (if the user’s score is >7, print “Good job!” )
  • Boolean expressions (if ‘Fill’ variable is equal to ‘true’, fill the answer box with a white color)
  • Variables
  • Functions (both Python functions such as “turtle.clear()”, and self-created functions, such as “draw_question_box()”
  • Console features -> Input, Print
  • Lists (ie. possible correct answer responses)
  • Turtle Commands (write, forward, penup, pendown, left, turtle fill, etc.)

9 of 13

Additional CS features & Challenges

  • turtle.write(...) -> write the questions and alternatives
  • “If (name) in (list)” -> checked whether a name was inside that list
  • turtle.reset(...) -> reset after finishing drawing a scenery
  • I was able to explore event listeners and tried using key presses for the user to answer the question, but I found those difficult to implement.
  • I also tried “turtle.onclick()” on the answer boxes as another way to answer the questions, but faced some challenges in setting this up

10 of 13

BUT ...

Challenge overcome!

  • Turtle Speed was going slow for drawing the background, so I had to be very patient and comment it out after finishing with the drawing in order to continue coding the Quiz
  • Many variables to keep track of
  • Many turtles and functions
  • Making the size of the stamped turtles bigger

11 of 13

What I liked

  • Sense of achievement - completing a project from start to end
  • Continuity - a project which had a storyline, combined with user interactivity ; the outcome is never the same
  • Trying to think like the user in order to create a user-friendly product
  • Applying what I learned in Python to serve my passion for environmental action

12 of 13

What I learned

  • Smart planning is better than working too hard
  • Work step by step, and don’t think too much
  • Being efficient is key - no distractions, positive feelings, push yourself
  • Brave coding over perfect coding - don’t be afraid to make mistakes
  • Learn by doing
  • There is a positive feeling of achievement waiting for you at the end!

13 of 13

THANK YOU!

. . .

*The questions and facts represented in the quiz are taken from credible, well-known sources, such as NASA and the National Geographic. However, they might need additional refining if the quiz is to be shared or made public.

Computer Science is a very usable art that stands at the core of everything we do and how we think.