New Program Announcement: South Bend Empowerment Zone
In collaboration with South Bend Code School, the South Bend Empowerment Zone launched a 5-week summer coding program for third through fifth graders during the Summer Academy Genius Hour. The classes met four days per week, and each coding session was 1 hour long. Students in the program practiced creative thinking, problem-solving, and systematic reasoning while programming their own interactive stories, games, and animations.
This project introduces students to variables and reinforces previously taught coding concepts, including but not limited to, sequencing, events, loops, and conditionals. Variables act as storage containers to hold values and can change, depending on conditions or on information passed to the program.
How to play: Move the arrow keys up, down, left, and right to control the rocket ship. Use the spacebar to shoot the laser. You must shoot the rocks with the laser to destroy them and add points to your score!
The Curriculum.
We use coding to develop students’ computer literacy skills and to teach relevant computer science skills. Students were introduced to new coding concepts to grow their computer science abilities, including but not limited to the following:
- Sequencing
- Events
- Loops
- Conditionals
- Variables
- Boolean Operators
Students also practiced professional programming skills like how to write clean code, debugging, and how to navigate project completion. Our curriculum also introduced students to a series of exposure activities like using binary as a method for encoding data, discussing careers in computing, and teaching students how empathy and creativity can be used to develop equitable technologies for others.
“The South Bend Empowerment Zone feels fortunate to collaborate with South Bend Code School. Part of the zone’s mission is to eliminate both academic and social/emotional opportunity gaps and partnerships like this one allows us to do so. It is exciting to see the students engage in something so challenging yet rewarding!”
— Jimena, 1st grade DLI- Spanish teacher
Student Feedback.
We provided the class with a short survey at the end of each coding session to gauge student progression and interactivity. Throughout the program, the overall response from the students was highly positive and showed that the continuation of coding programs is something that they are interested in. The students demonstrated a passion for expanding their skills! Here are a few quotes from the students in the program:
“I loved the scavenger hunts and kahoots!” — a participant
“I am not missing another class; I don’t want to miss coding a game!” — a participant
“Coding my own Space Invaders game, I liked the laser destroying the rocks.” — a participant
State-Standard Alignment.
According to the Indiana Department of Education, starting this fall, public and charter schools are required to teach computer science in grades K-12. Therefore, it was important to us that the curriculum that we provided taught students relevant skills, was enjoyable, and aligned with Indiana’s K-12 computer science standards.
Teaching computer science is a heavy lift for most schools and puts a lot of pressure on teachers. Finding the right curriculum, training educators, and delivering a comprehensive course that students enjoy, is difficult. Our team’s developed a model that helps educators teach computer science concepts across grade levels with training, curriculum, and regular support.
“We aim to combat the technology skills gap by reforming technology education and making learning skills in coding and computer science equitable. We are thrilled to be launching a summer program with the South Bend Empowerment Zone. We’ve partnered with the South Bend Empowerment Zone during the school year and are thrilled to be bringing the opportunity to bring coding to their students this summer as well!”
— Alex, co-founder of South Bend Code School
About South Bend Code School
South Bend Code School (SBCS) is an award-winning technology education company. We create project-based curriculum and instruction plans that help educators teach computer science concepts to elementary, middle, and high school students.
We were founded with the belief that in order to combat the technology skills gap, computer science education must be accessible and equitable to learners starting at the earliest level regardless of their economic and social backgrounds. It is for this reason that we created a program that assists schools on an ongoing basis by providing them with easy to follow lesson plans, in-the-classroom training, and routine check-ins to improve computer science teaching and learning.
For more information, visit southbendcodeschool.com. To join the mailing list for South Bend Code School, click here.
