Hands-On Experience in HPC with Secondary School Students

FERNÁNDEZ SLEZAK, DIEGO; TURJANSKI, PABLO; MONTALDO, DAMIÁN; MOCSKOS, ESTEBAN

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION

IEEE

Año: 2010 vol. 53 p. 128 - 135

0018-9359

It is a global concern that the number of studentsin computing-related fields has been decreasing in the last fewyears. As a way to improve this situation, several institutionshave been implementing programs to attract and keep studentsin science and technology majors.This work describes a High Performance Computing courseintended for secondary school students, which requires only themost basic infrastructure. In this hands-on workshop the studentslearn how to assemble, install and test a cluster.In parallel, students are exposed to a complete new area ofknowledge, obtaining a more accurate view of the discipline ofcomputer science, and increasing their confidence in their abilityto follow Computer Science. This course also provides opportu-nities for students to meet scientists, and lose any misconceptionsand negative stereotypes about science in general and computerscience in particular.The aim of this paper is to detail the key concepts conveyedto students, to share the course organization, materials, andexamples used, and to describe the overall experience.