More than 350 Victoria students showed off their video game creations Friday as part of an annual coding event.

Grade 4 and 5 students at Richmond Elementary School used a program called Scratch to turn what they're learning in science class into video games.

The annual event, Coding Quest, is Canada’s largest classroom-based coding program to challenge students to build their own computer game in the classroom.

"In their day-to-day life, they're taking in a whole bunch of media so this is a way to show them not just that life is about consuming media, but you can create media," said Dave Shortreed, vice-principal of the District Learning Team.

The program is an inquiry-based project that get students to integrate things they are learning in science into a video game and working as a team.

"It’s just neat to see how excited the kids are to teach each other this stuff," said Shortreed. "So that’s what gets me excited, their critical thinking, the collaboration, the creative thinking happening and how the kids get excited about sharing with each other what they’ve done."

Grade 5 student Andrew Stewart said the event teaches kids skills that could prove handy if they pursue a career in program.

"In the future, it’s not like we’re going to be using all the old-fashioned stuff and we’re probably going to need to know how to code," he said. "So I think it is important to learn at this age and then in the future we’ll know how."

The Coding Quest experimental learning program also assists teachers to help students learn together and showcase their educational computer games.

The event held Friday saw the release of a number of creative ideas as Grade 4 and 5 students gamed their way into the future.