Coders Bring Ideas to Life at Martin Avenue

Martin Avenue Elementary School fifth graders have recently been immersed in coding in their computer science classes. Students explored the Scratch programming language through Code Hop to create scenes in which two characters, known as sprites, had a dialogue.
The students created animated comic strip scenes with word bubbles. They were able to add character movements, scene changes and sound effects. Computer science teacher Michael Bevilacqua taught the students how to use the program and create the code, and then their creativity took over.
Fifth graders came up with imaginative scenarios, such as a hockey player scoring on a goalie, a human and a duck interacting in a food store, and a bear that wanted to eat a Cheetos Puff. The young coders even brought inanimate objects to life as their characters.
Mr. Bevilacqua explained that the animated story project was a continuation of their study of block-based coding, which has also included Dash Robots and Lego Spike kits.

