This is the second year of our middle school's new STEM Program. After 14 years of teaching math, I was very excited to be part of the development of this this new class at 3 different grade levels.
Last year, my colleague and I found that we had many students interested in coding.
A new student who came from another state introduced me to Micro:bits which he used at his school. I bought one to try out this summer and I feel it would be a perfect fit in our curriculum. The tutorials to learn to code the Micro:bit are free and students can engineer projects then code the Micro:bit to control what they've built.
Our students come from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds with half of our students from low-income households. We would like to continue to build and refine our curriculum to expose our students to a variety of STEM topics, activities and technology that may lead to an interest in a STEM career path.
My Project
Students love to engineer and build projects that solve a problem. They are engaged when participating in hands-on activities and being able to collaborate with each other. The BBC micro:bit is a powerful handheld, fully programmable, computer designed to encourage children to get actively involved in writing software and building new things that will be controlled by it.
The Micro:bit adds another layer of exposure for our students.
Our students have been learning coding on-line to solve puzzles or create stories. They have used coding to control robots to compete in various classroom events.
Students can create almost anything that can then be controlled by this little computer. Students will begin to understand that there are many more options and uses for coding and programming knowledge than playing games.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Brody and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
