Fifth graders at Holladay Elementary have been learning about cause-effect relationships (SOL5.5j). Today students in Ms. Neal’s class illustrated cause-effect relationships with animations created in Scratch. First, we brainstormed ideas of different situations that clearly show causality: accidents, sicknesses, successes, failures, surprises, etc. Next, the students logged into their Scratch accounts and created a new activity. I showed them how to add additional sprites and change their costumes. We wanted the costumes to reflect the cause-effect relationships. For example, if the milk spoiled, one costume would show good fresh milk, and the other costume would show green rotten milk. The person drinking it could have two costumes as well, one with a happy face and one with a disgusted face. In order to build the animation, we used the codes for Motion, Looks, and Control. Each sprite had its own code telling it when and how to move. The code also programmed the sprites to “say” things and change their costumes at specific times. One of the great features of Scratch, is that every project has a “Look Inside” button that you can click to see the code. Take a look at all of their projects here.
