ALPINE — The Alpine Public Library is offering free Raspberry Pis to any tri-county students in fifth through seventh grades. In exchange, those students will just need to bring them a plot diagram of a book.
Raspberry Pis are affordable, miniature computers that allow burgeoning computer whizzes to tinker with beginner computer coding. The Alpine library is making the devices available through a grant from the Texas Book Festival last summer, which also aims to enhance the library’s children’s and young-adult book collections.
In exchange for one of the computers, which retail at around $35, tri-county students will simply need to create a plot diagram of a new story in the library’s collection. Plot diagrams are visual representations of a book, allowing students to draw an outline of the major points in a story.
Designing these plot diagrams helps students to practice concepts like “text structure and claim-based reasoning,” the Alpine library said in a news release. It also “greatly improves student comprehension,” “makes a story more meaningful and enjoyable” and — last but not least — it’s “fun to do.”
To get started, students can visit the Alpine Public Library YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9USqgKs_rYCN1rzVhioIw and watch the video entitled “Plot Your Way to A Raspberry Pi!” The video educates students on how to access the new collection, make a plot diagram and pick up materials for the project.
“Good luck!” the library said to students in the news release. “Your Raspberry Pi awaits you.”
