London West MP Kate Young announces $2M for digital learning skills

The federal government is injecting $2-million into school programs across the country to expand coding and digital skills in the classroom.

London West MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Science Kate Young made the announcement Tuesday morning when she met with Grade 5 and 6 students at West Oaks French Immersion public school in London, Ont.

• Liberals spending $50M to teach K-12 students and their teachers coding

While in the classroom, Young engaged with students who participated in an activity where they programmeda self-driving rover on Mars.

"Coding and digital skills are the new ABCs - making digital literacy fundamental to the jobs of the future," said Young in a news release.

"That's why our government has made an historic investment through our CanCode program to teach digital skills to over one million young Canadians and their teachers."

The feds say the investment for Let's Talk Science will equip more young Canadians with in-demand literacy and problem-solving skill that today's employers demand. The investment is being allocated throughCanCode, a $50-million federal program that aims to teach coding and digital skills to students from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

• WATCH: Bains announces CanCode winners

CanCodewill invest $50 million for coding and digital skills development over the next two years. The program will also equip 63,000 teachers across Canada with training, tools and resources to teach digital skills.

The CanCodefunding will also support the deployment of an experiment in association with the Canadian Space Agency. Let's Talk Science's project will connect with Astronaut David Saint-Jacques during his 2018-19 mission to the International Space Station. Students will have the opportunity to conduct research on the challenges of space exploration and then analyze data using computational thinking skills. Students will be able to propose and evaluate solutions and contribute any finding to a national database.

According to Let's Talk Science's president and founder Bonnie Schmidt, in the next decade, over 70 per cent of jobswill require some background in science, technology, engineering and math.

"CanCodefunding will help Let's Talk Science ensure students develop skills needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world," said Schmidt.

Let's Talk Science has been working with educators across Canada since 1993.