Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is coming!  

This year, it takes place during the week of Dec 9-15.  As a reminder, the idea is for all students (and adults, too!) to try their hand at coding for one hour sometime within that week.

Code.org provides lots of ready-to-go self-guided activities here (tip-- filter for grades 9+ and choose "Comfortable."  Switch to "Beginner" for more basic activities).

This is not just for math and technology teachers! There are activities appropriate for all kinds of situations.  Here are some examples.

Sustainability

(part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project).

Life on Land (Python)

Tynker

Grades 6+ | Python

Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this Python project will have you create your own tree-planting game.

Responsible Consumption and Production (JavaScript)

Tynker

Grades 6+ | JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this coding prompt shows off a short project exploring recycling and reuse. Readers can create their own game by expanding the project.

Art

Interactive Art: Bringing Art to Life with Code

Peblio

Grades 9+ | JavaScript

Learn to draw and animate shapes with code to create interactive artwork inspired by artists.

Science

Escape Velocity and Black Holes!

STEMcoding project

Grades 9+ | JavaScript

Did you see the images of the black hole that were released in Spring 2019? Do you want to know more about black holes and how to escape from them? Check out this coding activity on how fast you need to go to escape from a gravitational field and what happens when not even light can escape!

Language Arts

ReconFigure of Speech

Code Avengers

Grades 6+ | Python

Our story-telling app retells a fairytale, with weird and funny results! But the program is poorly written. Writing good code is vital. Help refine this app into something amazing. Look at word classes in English, and use variables, consonants, lists, and functions to reconfigure this program. If you have written a program before and want some style, this is for you.

Mystery Skype

Have you heard of Mystery Skype?  In their own words, "Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It's suitable for all age groups and can be used to teach subjects like geography, history, languages, mathematics and science."

I took a look at classrooms that have signed up in the high school age range and was impressed that there are quite a few!

Check it out here.