During their STEM class on Monday, first grade students learned a bit about the voting process and the containers that are used to hold votes after people complete their ballots. Following this learning, students worked as designers to work to create their own ballot boxes. Boxes could take any shape or form, but needed to have a slot able to accommodate an index card-sized ballot. Take a look at some of their creations below!
In their first computer science project of the year, our 7th and 8th graders took a big step in their journeys as programmers -- moving from block-based to text-based coding. In previous STEM projects, students have used tools that allow them to snap together code "blocks" to make things happen. In this unit, they were responsible for typing commands to tell the computer how to execute actions. The image below shows the difference between text-based coding and block-based coding. While there are many different text-based coding languages, our 7th & 8th graders learned skills in Python, due to its beginner-friendly nature. Still, making this transition is not easy, so students were provided with resources and modules to work through that allowed them to have some starting directions and then challenged them to stretch their thinking by generating their own additions and modifications. Here's a look at a project, called "Turtle Race," in action: https:
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