Lesson 1

Move with purpose

In this lesson, students are introduced to the role of pollinators in ecosystems and discuss movement patterns in their environment. They review the Scratch programming interface and explore motion, loops, and randomization. They then use these concepts to create a program that simulates the movement patterns of pollinators. Finally, students document their programming choices using the comment feature in the Scratch interface.

school
Grade 8
local_library
Subject Science
schedule
Length of lesson 50 minutes

Learning objective

Students will program loops to simulate random movements.

Standards

CSTA Standards

  • 2-AP-12: Design and iteratively develop programs that combine control structures, including nested loops and compound conditionals.
  • 2-AP-13: Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of programs
  • 2-AP-19: Document programs in order to make them easier to follow, test, and debug.

NGSS Standards

  • MS-LS2-2: Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.

Lesson contents