Sunset Ridge Intermediate School teacher Nam Nguyen shows fifth graders a dance animation sequence during a programming assignment in his computer science class.
Along with the traditional curriculum of English, math and science, fifth-graders at Sunset Ridge Intermediate School in Ridgefield are learning how to program in computer science class. Nam Nguyen, a computer science teacher at Sunset Ridge said the fifth-graders are programming in block coding, a system that lets students select and order blocks of code to complete tasks.
“Because of development and how intimidating computer science can be, a lot of students worried about whether they were just going to sit here and code the whole time, line code,” Nguyen said in a news release. Nguyen explained that instead of doing line code, students are engaged in creative tasks, working with other students at their tables to drag and drop code blocks to find the right pieces to solve a logic puzzle.
Nguyen said the visual code blocks are all composed in Python, one of the top computer programming languages in the world.
“It’s one of the most innovative methods of introducing young students to Python,” he explained, “because every line of code or every block that students are using in the program at the fifth and sixth-grade level is the exact same code that is used in Python.”
