Cybera and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS), the creators of the online digital skills learning platform, Callysto, today announce that they are winding down their involvement in the project. Callysto will continue to operate as an open source tool, and its 125+ learning resources will remain available to teachers and students across Canada.
Since its launch in 2017, over 160,000 students and 6,000 teachers have been trained on Callysto and its interactive educational content. Over the past seven years, data science, mathematics, and teaching experts from Cybera and PIMS have developed specialized course materials, such as data visualizations and specialized notebooks, and delivered countless hackathons and teacher training workshops.
The Callysto project was funded by the national CanCode program. The goal of Cybera and PIMS was to take an innovative approach to supplementing Canada’s Grades K-12 curriculum with data science, and thus introduce essential digital skills to students.
“We are immensely proud of what we have accomplished with Callysto,” says Dr. Barb Carra, President and CEO of Cybera. “From fostering computational thinking, programming, and data literacy skills in Canadian schools, to bringing communities of students together for interactive hackathons, this project has achieved far more than we ever dreamed it would. Our program’s success is measured not just by numbers, but by the positive impact we’ve made on teachers and students, as well as the broader educational landscape.”
“As the world becomes increasingly driven by AI and big data, it is becoming that much more important to prepare our students for the tools and digital thinking mindsets they will need to apply to the future workforce,” says Ozgur Yilmaz, Director of PIMS. “Tools like Callysto are providing a valuable way to close the gap between existing curricula, and building those data science skills in students. We’re thrilled to have been involved with this program, and happy it will continue to be available to classrooms in the years ahead.”
Cybera and PIMS will continue to explore ways to promote and sustain Callysto, as well as other open-source opportunities that support next-generation learning in Canadian classrooms.
For more information on the Callysto project, please email contact@callysto.ca.
The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) is a consortium established by universities in western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Our mandate is to promote research in and applications of the mathematical sciences, to facilitate the training of highly qualified personnel, to create an equitable, diverse and inclusive community, to enrich public awareness of and education in the mathematical sciences, and to create mathematical partnerships with similar organizations in other countries (with a particular focus on the Pacific Rim).
CanCode was created to equip Canadian youth, with a focus on inclusion of underrepresented groups, with the skills they need to be prepared for further studies, including advanced digital skills and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) courses, leading to the jobs of the future.