In our ever-evolving world, preparing students for the challenges of the future requires innovative activities and experiences... Enter Lego Education SPIKE Essential, a cross-curricular STEAM kit designed specifically for elementary education. Throughout the months of April and May, our fourth and fifth graders were lucky enough to get their hands on these wonderful sets!
During our Library/Tech classes, our scholars worked collaboratively while facing specific challenges: Build a ferris wheel, and use block-based coding to make it operate, and remix it to make it safer or more fun for the Lego characters to ride. Build a teacup ride, but then revise it so that more lego characters could use the ride. The students would then code the ride on their computer and send it via bluetooth to their ride to make it operate forward, backward, faster, slower, and stop and start at specific times. They were thrilled at the results!
Not only did our scholars have a wonderful time using these kits, they further developed their Computer Science and robotics skills that they will carry with them as we delve further and further into the 21st century. We would like to extend as special thank you to the City of Cambridge STEAM Initiative for loaning us these kits.