Biography Bottles

By the time students get to the 5th grade, their projects have both physical and digital elements. That is, their final products include some computer programming and something they made with their hands using generous amounts of glue and/or tape. Another consistent element of the 5th grade projects is that the students are creating something that shares their knowledge, thoughts, ideas, and understandings on a selected topic. I select a broad category and the students select a topic from that category to be the subject of their research.

The first unit this year is biographies of notable women (mostly women anyway) from STEM related fields. I selected 6 subjects for each of the 4 groups of 5th graders to choose from. There was some overlap from group to group, but always some variation as well. Ideally each group would have had an entirely different set of people to choose from, but I was limited by what is available on the digital research tools available to the students. The problem with trying to introduce students to lesser known (but no less important) women and people of color in STEM is that there are not as many resources for them to use to gather information.

Students had some time to research their choices because there were always a few who they had never heard of. They selected a person they were interested in studying and set about gathering more information on that person's life and work. The students were also able to decide if they wanted to work with a partner or go it alone.

(The project in the video above is one of many excellent final programs. This one is about Rachel Carson, see the whole project on Scratch: here.)

The final product had two parts. The first was to create a Scratch project that told about the life of their selected topic. Students had to include an image of their person, basic biographical data, information about their education, and the significance of their work. The second part of the project was to use a plastic bottle, cardboard, construction paper, and various other crafting supplies to build a model of the person they researched. They were to try make their model look as much as possible like the person they studied. It is no mean feat to turn a plastic bottle and construction paper into recognizable portrait of Ada Lovelace or Grace Hopper, but I am always impressed by how well the students manage this challenge.

As students progress through the lab over the course of their elementary careers, it is my goal to train them to see every material that I put before them, be it a cereal box or a computer as a tool for sharing their ideas, expressing their thoughts, and building personally meaningful projects. I give students as much choice as I am able to without overwhelming them. By giving them choices and providing an array of flexible materials, though they are working on a similar task, there is a wondrous variety in the final products. The studio where the students are sharing their Scratch projects is linked below.

Scratch Biographies Studio

This project is based on an project by K. Boyce, instructions can be found on Instructables.

Programming Art

I have wanted to do a unit focused on programming and the arts for a while now, and the redesign of Scratch unveiled earlier this year gave me the perfect opportunity. Since this is the first rotation of the year, we started with a day of exploration in Scratch as many students have not used the platform since last school year. While students reacquainted themselves with Scratch, I made sure that everyone had their login information in their journals.

Over the next two days, students used two different tutorials that I designed to introduce them to the Pen and Music extensions in Scratch. If you would like to look them over, here they are: Pen and Music. These begin with how to add the extension blocks and an overview of how they work. There are a few starter scripts followed by suggestions for tinkering with the code. Each tutorial ends with a couple of reflection questions which students respond to in their journals. It was wonderful to hear the students' excitement as they discovered new visual and sonic effects during their explorations.

An important element of the Scratch online community it the ability for students to "remix" projects created by others. They are able to, in effect, look under the hood of a program and take it apart to see how it works. They can experiment with making changes to the code and determine the effects of those changes. I directed the students to a Scratch studio (link below) called "Interactive Music and Drawing" and specifically to a pair of projects that I created using the two extensions. They were instructed to try both projects, then to choose one to remix. I loved seeing the creative variations students created. Some students invented new rhythms, others added more characters that draw different shapes or patterns. I may be projecting a little bit, but I feel like this group's willingness to go their own directions and to follow their own interests is a consequence of having started visiting the lab in kindergarten. That's 4 years of being instilled with the idea that in this space their creativity is encouraged, valued, and celebrated.

The final project for this unit was a challenge to create an original Scratch project (as opposed to a remix) that uses both the pen and the music extensions. The only additional parameters were that they needed to include several key press events that allow the user to control some elements of the program. This could be changing the tempo or the instrument playing. It could be changing the color of the pen or the direction of the sprites. Students with a more musical bent were free to follow that interest, while the visual artists went that way. I encouraged them to return to the tutorials if they needed inspiration or to be reminded of how to create a certain effect. Some students chose to work with a partner and some worked independently. I have been impressed with how well the teams have divided the labor between themselves.

After a few days to work, students shared their projects and added them to the studio. They reflected in their journals on their work thinking about what they are proudest of, and what they think they could improve. Finally, students explored the studio trying each other's projects as well as projects created by students from the classes who have already been through the lab this grading cycle. This gave them the chance to see the ideas of others and to practice good digital citizenship skills by leaving helpful comments for each other.

Here is the link to the studio where students have been sharing their artistic wonders. The last rotation ends the 3rd week of October, so more projects will be added as new classes complete their work. Check back to see what they have made!

Starting with Scratch

It has been a great first rotation in the lab! So much amazing making and learning is happening, and I will write about it all in due course over the next several weeks as new classes pass through the lab.

I want to start with the third graders for this post. Third grade begins each year by being introduced to the Scratch programming language and the associated online community. Students do finish their second grade year at Sinclair with a taster course in Scratch, but this is their first exposure to how the upper grades in the lab function.

We start with a lesson on proper digital etiquette with some videos and class discussions. The students learn about their digital footprints, and how to leave appropriate comments. Cyberbullying is also discussed. Students take notes in their journals to use later when they plan their final projects.

Before students are presented with their Scratch login credentials, we do a brief tour of the online community. We go over how to share and unshare projects, how to complete the project page, how to leave comments, and how to report bad behavior. That done, the students login an have some time to explore and create in their accounts. Over the course of the unit, I do give some direct instruction on how to use certain coding structures, but I also provide the students time to experiment. Problem solving is part of the learning process so rather than just tell students how to do everything, I am more likely to ask them guiding questions to help them move in the right direction.

Students worked independently or with a partner to plan a project that would share at least 2 dos and 2 don'ts of digital etiquette and online behavior. They made organizers in their journals showing the behaviors and the reasons why that behavior is acceptable or not. They also sketched the look of their project and the sprites they intended to use. Students had several days to work on the creation of their projects. I met with each individual/group to discuss their progress and offer feedback. As students finished their projects they learned how to add them to a class studio where their work could be viewed about the whole class. I left comments for each project and students practiced their digital etiquette by leaving helpful comments for each other.

This is is one of my favorite units each year just because of the unalloyed excitement of the students. Those who have been at Sinclair for a while have visited the lab to see projects created by older students using Scratch. This unit makes them feel like "the big kids" and they are overjoyed about it. For me, I am most excited about the endless array of possibilities Scratch opens up for the students. Scratch Jr. is wonderful tool, but Scratch has a far greater number of programming tools with which students can create. They can compose music, draw pictures, connect with hardware, and work with data structures like variables and lists. I cannot wait to see what these students will create this year as their skills grow!

Here's the studio where all of the projects are posted.

STEM Lab Year 5

It is hard to believe that it this will be the 5th year for the Sinclair STEM Lab, but it is true. It seems like only yesterday that I made 5,000 trips back and forth to the 3rd grade T-buildings with all of my teaching possessions precariously balanced on a dolly of questionable structural integrity. I am excited to make this 5th anniversary year the best the STEM Lab has yet seen. I am looking forward to seeing all of our Sinclair families at Meet the Teacher next Friday afternoon. Hopefully everyone had a wonderful summer and is ready to make amazing things in the lab this year.

My summer included working with a great group of middle school girls on projects like Raspberry Pi physical computing and drone flying. I traveled a bit to visit family and friends in the Midwest which was wonderful. I was also fortunate to travel to Belize to do some snorkeling along the second longest barrier reef in the world. There were sharks, squid, and a dazzling rainbow of fish and coral.

As I am planning the year's instructional units for the lab, one of my guiding documents will be the National Geographic Learning Framework. I learned about this in the course of becoming a National Geographic Certified Educator last April. It outlines a set of attitudes, skills, and knowledge that make up the "explorer's mindset". The framework can be applied to any subject area and any grade level. At the end of last year I began experimenting with incorporating elements of the learning framework into the projects that 4th and 5th grade completed and I think it went well. I am excited to introduce it to the other grade levels.

As always, students will be working on both physical and digital projects, or in some cases projects with aspects of both. It remains my ultimate goal that the students learn to see everything in the lab as a construction material, whether it's a pencil, a cardboard box, or a computer, that they can use to share their ideas and learning.

Plans for after school clubs are not yet finalized. More information will hopefully be available in the next week or two. I can say that at this point my plan is to offer a section of digital making for 3rd graders only and another for 4th and 5th grade combined. This will allow me to develop the making skills of the younger students, and to guide the older students in more complex projects. If you have any questions, please let me know.

I can't wait to see everyone and to begin another year of learning and fun in the lab. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and I will hope to see you on Friday for Meet the Teacher!

Imagining Adaptations

Fourth grade's final rotation in the lab for the school year begins with research into the Earth's biomes. Students started with some note taking on BrainPop and identified the different biomes and the variations in climate and elevation that define them. Next, students formed teams, or elected to work alone, and were randomly assigned one of the biomes. They continued their research using BrainPop along with National Geographic resources and online encyclopedias to learn about the plants and animals that inhabit the biome they were assigned. In particular they were to find the adaptations that organisms in that biome use to survive. The information collected was organized into a table showing the name of the organism, the adaptation, and the role that adaptation plays in keeping the organism alive.

Up until this point, I did not tell students what they would actually be making in this unit because I did not want the product to influence their research. However, with the note taking portion of the project complete, it is time to outline their task. The challenge is to imagine an organism that lives in the biome they were assigned with a focus on giving it the adaptations it needs to survive there. Students planned their organism in their journals complete with labeled sketches highlighting the adaptations. With their plans complete, students used the STEM Lab standard materials of cardboard and paper scraps to build a model of their imagined organism.

Students spent several days working on this part. One of the things I have been focusing on getting the children to understand when they are making things is that just because we are building with trash, it doesn't have to look trashy. It is sort of like a neatness counts idea, but really it is more about getting them to slow down and take their time. Their project being done well is more important than it being done fast.

The final step was for the teams to make a small model of their biome to to display their model in. They also filled out a display card to accompany their work. I invited one of the first grade classes to the lab to visit the imaginary menagerie and the fourth graders had to discuss their projects for a younger audience.

This was a new project for the lab and I am generally pleased with how it has gone so far. However, for future iterations, I am planning on direction students to include at least one adaptation from different categories into their imagined organism. That is, an adaptation for dealing with the climate, an adaptation for getting food, and adaptation for defending itself, and so on. As it was, many of the projects so far have focused on adaptations for doing just one of those things and I want them to think about adaptations helping organisms do all of things they need to survive.

Animated Artworks

It has become my habit in the STEM Lab to experiment, so to speak, on the 5th graders. When I devise a new project or new activity or practice, I find it useful to try it out on the group of students who will have gone on to middle school next year. That way, the necessary tweaks and alterations can be made for the following year. This unit is not entirely mine as much is adapted from a number of different activities I have seen done by my various Twitter friends.

Having said that, this is very much an experimental unit in which the 5th grade has been working. It is no secret that I do all that I can to bring concepts and skills from other subject areas into my lab projects. I have wanted to implement a unit with a fine arts focus for a while, and I felt like the 5th graders finally had the requisite physical computing skills to be successful. The project involves students creating their own interpretations of a famous artist's work, both digitally and physically.

Students started by doing some research into the life and work of a particular artist. The first two rotation groups got Vincent Van Gogh (because the first group was shorted 3 days due to various interruptions) and the third group is at work on Claude Monet. (I have not settled on an artist for the last group, yet.) These were chosen because they have a wide range of works to choose from. Students selected a work and sketched it into their notes. This gave me the chance to teach some basic drawing techniques which was a novel experience.

Next, students used Scratch to create an animated version of the painting they selected that also shared information about their artist. First they had to download an image of the painting. We used Wikimedia Commons for this because the images are free to use with attribution (which is another thing I have been working to get students in the habit of, citing their sources). They then uploaded that image into Scratch as a background. All of that is something they have learned previously. The next bit, however, took a little practice. They uploaded the image of the painting again, this time as a sprite and used the paint editor tools to erase most of the painting, leaving only the piece they intended to make move with code. In Van Gogh's "Starry Night" this may have been the moon or the clouds, in Monet's "Tulip Field" it was the flowers or the windmill blades. That sprite was then placed exactly over its corresponding place on the background so that it would only appear as a separate element when then triggering event key was pressed. Students repeated this process until they had at least 3 different animated elements in their chosen work. They also added a sprite that told about the life and work of their artist.

Here are a few example projects:
Van Gogh, Irises
Van Gogh, Starry Night
Monet, Boat on the Epte

The second part of the unit moved us into the realm of physical computing with the Raspberry Pi. First I introduced students to the Explorer HAT add on board. It is a self contained set of inputs and outputs capable of running both LEDs and motors. It has a small breadboard (which students learned to use last year) on top for building the circuits. Students are able to program the lights and motors using Scratch, albeit an older version which takes a bit of getting used to for them. Armed with their upgraded skills, students worked in teams to use the Scratch paint editor to create a digital interpretation of their chosen painting. This too takes some practice, but it also allows them to get creative with how they accomplish the drawing. Some use the shape drawing tools and fill them with color, while others use the line drawing tools. Meanwhile, the other partner is drawing the same painting on paper with colored pencils and markers. Both drawings done, the physical and the digital, teams added 2 LEDs to different places on their drawing, wired them to the Raspberry Pi, and programmed them to light up on different key presses. They also drew and cut out a detail from their painting, attached it to the the axle on a motor, and added the motor to the drawing as well. This was programmed to spin on a key press. The lights and motors matched elements in their digital drawing that they had animated on screen, similar to what they did during week 1. They also added a sprite to talk about the artist and the painting.

At this point the rotations are about half over and I am generally pleased with how it has gone so far. I think for the future I will create a gallery of paintings and artists for the students to choose from. Hopefully that will lead to a greater diversity of projects in the gallery.

Robo-Mouse Runs Again

For Cycle 3 in the STEM Lab, our friend Robo-Mouse returns to play with our kindergarten and first grade classes. This is a new experience for the kindergarten, while first grade was introduced to Robo-Mouse last year. In either case, this is a chance for students to apply their computer programming skills without the screen.

For kindergarten, the unit started with a review of the skills and concepts they have learned so far this year using Code.org. They are reminded of the difference between and algorithm and a program. We go over the strategies they use for debugging their programs. After having their memories refreshed, they worked in their Code.org courses taking turns as the driver (person operating the Ipad) and navigator (person who watches for errors and offers advice).

Next, students are introduced to the Robo-mouse and how to appropriately handle it. (This is an important lesson as the Robo-mouse lacks in durability what it gains in affordability.) This first day is, for the most part, an exploration and discovery kind of day. Their only assignment that day is to build an L shape with the mouse at one end and the cheese at the other, then to program the mouse to the cheese. It's simple and it gives them a feel for assembling the maze pieces and understanding the difference between the turns in Code.org and on the Robo-mouse. In Code.org "turn" and "move" are accomplished with a single command while on the robot "turn" is one command and "move forward" is another. This is a bit of an adjustment for them, but they have mostly figured it out pretty quickly.

After a day of exploration, students practice building mazes from cards and programming the solutions to those mazes. The mazes become progressively more challenging as their skills improve. One of the challenges of the cards has nothing to do with programming, just building it to match the picture. I have found over the last couple years of teaching with Robo-Mouse that this is good for their spatial reasoning. A couple days into this, once they are comfortable using the cards to build their mazes, I introduce the algorithm cards. These are a way for them to keep track of the steps of their programs as number of steps in each solution increases. In a Code.org program every step is easily visible on the screen. Using Robo-mouse, however, once they enter a step into the robot, it is invisible. They can only see if a step is correct when the machine executes it at the intended time. When they watch the cards while the robot runs the program, they are able to see where the program breaks down and make adjustments at that pint rather than returning to square one.

As for the first graders, the unit starts in a similar fashion. Students review programming concepts in their Code.org courses before having an exploration day with Robo-mouse. They are reintroduced to the algorithm cards and debugging strategies. One thing I have them do is record an original maze on grid paper. Basically they are making their own maze cards. I have them record a solution to their maze on the card using arrows like those on the algorithm cards.

First grade's big task with Robo-mouse was using it as an element of a story retell. This started with them creating a story map for a fairy tale or story they like. (I used "This Is Not My Hat" as my example.) The then quartered that paper so that one part of the story was at each corner of a square. Students programmed the robot to go around the square, telling the main events of the story at it traveled from one corner to the next. They found that it is is not as easy as it sounds to tell summarize a story in the 30 seconds it takes Robo-mouse to run the perimeter of the square. It was fun to watch them practice finishing what they were saying before the mouse turned the next corner. I think that in the next iteration of this unit, I will let them design pieces to be the setting and costumes for the robot so that it can act as a character in the story.