Fifth graders at Laburnum Elementary have been learning about plant and animal cells (SOL5.5a). Today students in Ms. Burgess’s class used Scratch to write a program that identifies the parts of a cell. First, we reviewed the cell parts and their functions and discussed ways that students could research additional information (using books, notes, or the Internet). I explained that we would be writing code today, which is similar to the code that is in each cell. DNA gives directions for things to happen inside the cell, and our code will give directions for things to happen in our diagram. Just like in DNA, if one piece of the code is wrong, it can create a problem. That’s why we teach elementary students to code, because it requires logic and problem solving skills to make sure their code works. After we set up our Scratch accounts, the students created a new project, clicked the background icon, and painted a background image of a plant or animal cell. Next, we deleted the Scratch sprite (the default cat character) and created our own. I showed them how to take their photo with the camera button and turn themselves into a sprite. Finally, we used the coding blocks to build a program that moved our sprite to different parts of the cell and identified their names and functions. You can see all their projects here.
