This year in science, the Te’enah and Chalav classes will be learning many exciting areas of science but the most exciting for all is our new coding unit. Every week they will be spending at least a half hour learning how to code, the reasoning behind it and the importance of specific and logical directions. To begin our unit and get moving at the end of our day, they practiced coding their own “robots”…each other! Working in groups of three or pairs they had to practice giving their “robots” clear and specific directions to make them move.
While working in their groups they learned what happened when they didn’t give specific enough directions. They also noticed that they needed to be more specific because unlike humans, “robots” or programs don’t have the knowledge to move in the same ways we learned. For example, “sit in a chair” is an easy command for us, but when trying to “program” one of the teachers they needed to give five extra steps. We are looking forward to getting started with the computers after Yom Kippur and begin learning how to create programs of our own.