STEM students in Madison City Schools have been busy learning about coding and other digital literacy skills during their weekly STEM class.
Thanks to a generous grant from Leidos, each STEM classroom is equipped with a class set of micro:bits that students can code to assist them in creating a simple computer program using basic commands.
“The BBC micro:bit is designed to excite and appeal to a broad range of young people including those who might have thought tech was not for them.
By inspiring more young people to learn digital skills, we aim to diversify the students who choose STEM subjects as they progress through school and into their careers. This, in turn, grows a diverse pipeline of talent, boosting social equity and contributing to the creation of better technology.” https://microbit.org/about/#top
Having the micro:bits has enabled STEM teachers to create lessons that encourage students to explore diverse computing devices and digital tools while developing their problem-solving and computational thinking skills.
After students learn how the micro:bit is coded, they are given a challenge while incorporating the micro:bits to help solve a given problem.
Teachers have scaffolded lessons from easy projects such as making name tags to more complex coding such as sending snowballs from one end of the hallway to the other using the micro:bits accelerometer and radio antennae features.
In a particular 3rd grade lesson, students wrote, tested and debugged a program, which created a virtual snow globe in a block-based visual programming environment while collaborating with other students.
Students worked on presentation skills as they demonstrated their snow globes to other classmates.
Throughout the lesson students discussed how the coding skills might be utilized in a variety of STEM careers.
Madison City students are thankful as they benefit from our amazing community partners such as Leidos.
STEM Teacher Megan Hockey contributed to this article.
Students work collaboratively incorporating the micro:bit to solve a STEM challenge
