Beyond a class I took about coding in R in my undergrad, I have not done much with coding or programming. However, this week, two of my classes had workshops on the topic. In our science teaching course, volunteers from Science Venture came into our classroom to do a workshop on programming with Micro:bit. Simultaneously, we worked on programming with Scratch in this class.

If I had the resources in my class to do programming, I would integrate these programs into my curriculum in a few different ways.

Connections to Important Tech

In my class, I would like to help my students understand all of the simple computers that help us in our day-to-day lives. When we worked with Micro:bit, I was struck by the features that allowed us to program the Micro: bit into a compass that would display certain messages when pointed in the cardinal directions.

Immediately, I started thinking about the ways that we could use this tech to explore the tech that has become ubiquitous in wilderness adventure like transceivers that backcountry skiers use for safety in avalanche country or GPS devices that allow expeditions to send out an SOS signal from areas where there is no cell phone service.

Gratitude Through Programming

One of my core beliefs in education is that students will be more grateful for the technology and resources they have when they know the work that goes into creating those resources.

I think that it would be a great curricular connection to explore GPS units just like we would explore any other outdoor technology like skis, stoves, or tents. If we know the people who created this technology and the work that they put into making it available for us, we can fully grasp the privilege that comes with using these technologies.