Scratch Programming Event at Horndean Technology College
On 4th July, I visited the Horndean Technology College in my capacity as a STEM Ambassador and volunteered my time to help around 300 year 5 children to learn about programming using the Scratch programming tool.
What is Scratch Programming?
Scratch is a visual programming tool where you create a computer program using jigsaw-like pieces called 'blocks'. Each block provides logic or functionality to make the program do something useful. For example, moving a sprite (a type of 2D image or animation) around on the screen, or getting it to make a sound.
To use Scratch, you need nothing more than a computer with a web browser and internet connection. You can find the tool here:
You can also find many tutorials on YouTube to help you get started with Scratch. So, why not have a go yourself - it's fun and it's also FREE!
What did the children learn?
The children were tasked with creating a simple representation of a wind turbine, using line drawings to create their sprites. They were asked to make the blades of their wind turbine rotate, and learnt how to store and modify the speed of rotation using a variable.
There were further steps where the children used the "broadcast" feature in Scratch to send a message from one wind turbine to another, to demonstrate a basic simulation of bringing more wind turbines online when the energy demand increases.
To achieve this, the children needed to be capable of learning the following skills to a very basic level:
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Many of the children seemed to be already familiar with Scratch, perhaps having already used it to some extent in their primary school lessons.
What did I learn?
I learnt a surprising number of things from being involved in this event. Firstly, I discovered that year 5 children are surprisingly well behaved and mature when engaged in a task that excites and interests them! It was wonderful to see the look of delight on the children's faces when they saw their wind turbine blades rotate for the first time.
I also learnt that it can be a challenge getting a classroom full of children all logged into their computers. It made me realise that more could be done by the software industry to make the login process (or account administration) easier to manage for educational groups. You might think that this would be easy to achieve by just issuing every member of the class with the same login details but when every other child mis-types the password it doesn't take long for this shared account to be locked out by the "multiple failed login attempts" policy!
Another thing I discovered was that teachers are very reliant on support from teaching assistants and indeed the STEM Ambassadors, to identify those children who need a little extra help with completing the task. I found one child who was struggling to use the mouse because they were left-handed and trying to use the mouse with the wrong hand, and another who was struggling due to a physical disability and needed the mouse settings to be adjusted to slow down the cursor movement and make it easier to control.
And, finally, I realised that language is of crucial importance when speaking to year 5 children. Some of the words used in the task description were new to the children and needed to be explained in more simple terms. For example, a "variable" was described by the teacher as "a bucket or box that we can store something in".
What is STEM?
STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Maths.
What is a STEM Ambassador?
STEM Ambassadors are volunteers who are willing to offer some of their time to help out at STEM events in schools, colleges and youth groups. The events aim to inspire young people to think about careers in STEM by dispelling some of the myths about people who work in STEM and by showing them that this type of work can be interesting and exciting.
There are many benefits of being a STEM Ambassador. Not only does our work benefit the children we work with but it also brings benefits for ourselves. The events provide networking opportunities, the chance to hone your presentation and communication skills, and to have fun showing young people just how exciting careers in STEM can be! It is a very rewarding way to use your skills and provides a real benefit to your local community as well as to industry in general.
You can find out more about how to become a STEM Ambassador here: