East Union Schools codes robots.

East Union School District hosted it’s Family Literacy and STEM night Monday.

East Union has been integrating computer sciences into its curriculum since 2019 after securing the ‘Computer Science is Elementary Award’ from the Iowa governs stem council. The event consisted of students sharing with their parents or guardians the skills they have been using and learning with computer sciences.

“East Union wanted to work to be a model computer science school,” said elementary Principal Joan Gordon.

In 2019 EU was among the first six schools to receive the funding award in Iowa, 12 schools total as of this year. The award was roughly $50,000 the school could put toward computer science curricular. The blueprint submitted at time of application was the design of how the implementation and integration of the program would look for East Union Elementary.

“We wanted a project thats curricular would help elevate our offering beyond the basic subject areas,” said Gordon.

Computer sciences teacher Robin McNutt has taught students from transitional kindergarten to fifth grade coding using equipment afforded through the award that the school received.

“Mrs. McNutt has put in a lot of time with the students teaching and assisting them through the learning process, taking older students to mentor the younger students in a weekly computer science workshop or providing lessons for the younger students to work through,” said Gordon.

McNutt teaches computer sciences for fourth and fifth graders as part of daily course work. On a weekly basis, she also has her students work with the younger student body mentoring them on how to use the equipment or she provides a lesson plan for the younger students to continue building their skills.

The equipment the award provided are called a finch and blue-bot.

The finch is a contraption that has wheels. Students can code or program the finch to move in directions across the ground. While observing the students the finch has the option to house a marker or paint stick that allows them to create markings on a large sheet of paper by coding the finch to track a certain course created by four directional options that includes turns. The students can also control the speed the finch travels the coding track that they implement into the computer.

The blue bot is similar in the fashion the students code it for movement, however instead a computer is not required. The blue bot is programed by buttons housed on the blue bot rather than being input into a computer software like the finch. In observation the blue bot moved in units. Basic graph paper was used as an explanation feature to grasp the concept that the blue bot moves one unit per button selected out of four directional options while programing. One unit or box on graph paper per button selected, however at a much larger scale than the actual size of graph paper. In demonstration a teacher drew an ‘X’ with a circle around it and a student was asked to program the blue bot to reach the circled ‘X’. The student input three units forward and one unit left and was just short of the desired location.

Another curricular is the ‘Makey-Makey’, where students test connective circuits using a computer, a grid, and wire components to create a result whether a sound or movement within a video program. Students connect a Makey Makey to their computers to explore how physical computing allows them to interact with computers using external objects demonstrating a simple circuit.