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In 2010, 51 percent of people working in science and engineering occupations in the United States were white men, according to the National Science Foundation. As technology becomes more intertwined with everyday life, opportunities to create, monitor and administer that technology are at an all-time high.

It's becoming increasingly clear that computer science education grapples with a stubborn image problem. And it's one that we simply cannot afford to ignore any longer.

THE KAPOR CENTER CODING LANDSCAPE DATABASE The Kapor Center has collected information on 300+ programs or software that teach youth and adults elements of computer science and coding. This is not an exhaustive list, as this field is rapidly growing.

This year's college graduates are earning more than they expected to in their first jobs out of school. But they weren't expecting very much. Members of the class of 2014 who accepted job offers took positions with median earnings of $50,050, above their median expectations of $48,890, according to new data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a career-services and recruiting industry group.

Less than 1% of women going to college plan to major in computer science, according to the American Association of University Women. Those are bleak numbers. What will prompt more women to get into coding? The first step: paying teachers to recruit girls to take coding classes.

The students in Kirsten Lunzer's fourth-grade class watch as Codey the Troll crosses their computer screen, guided by the program they wrote to leap obstacles and collect blue jelly beans. These programming-savvy students in Minnetonka are on the leading edge of a new high-tech era that has Minnesota schools scrambling to respond to student demand for computer science classes that teach them how to develop software, apps, games and websites.