Beaver is an international challenge whose goal is to promote Informatics (or Computer Science, or Computing) and Computational Thinking especially among teachers and pupils of all ages. By this challenge, many countries simultaneously organize online challenge to test students’ informatics capabilities.
The challenge are made of a set of short questions called Beaver tasks. These tasks can be answered without prior knowledge about Informatics, but are clearly related to Informatics concepts. To solve those tasks, pupils are required to think in and about information, discrete structures, computation, data processing and to use higher order thinking skills such as analytical thinking and problem solving.
It is clear that, in addition to the challenge targeted to young pupils, the Beaver initiative is also to reach a lot of other people, with the same goal. Computers and other technological devices being ubiquitous nowadays, it is important to make the public aware of Informatics, not only as a technology but also as the science to educate them and make their experience with technology better.