Victoria or Western Australia. Who will be the next champion?
This year Code Club Australia began the Code of Origin challenge, a series of new coding projects released each school term that would see two states and/or territories battling it out to see who the winner for the term would be.
In term one New South Wales went up against Queensland. Each state had two new projects released. One project was a hide and seek game, similar to a Where’s Wally book, that showcased the states native fauna and places that were unique to visit. The other project was a catching game where the state’s most popular exports dropped from the top for the user to catch in a basket below.
Both of these projects were designed to engage kids in coding but to also integrate with the achievement standards of HASS across years 3 and 4. They also served as a way for other kids around the world to learn some interesting facts about Australia. And the winner from term 1 was Queensland!
Now it is time for the term 2 challenge to begin. This term we have Western Australia and Victoria battling it out. This means that Code Club Australia has released 4 new coding projects ready for the challenge.
Both Victoria and Western Australia have a featured coding project that has the user creating pop art. The Victorian pop art is based on Melbourne Cup horses and the Western Australian pop art is based on Chinese lanterns that are released at the Festival of the Pearl each year in Broome.
The coding project is quite a simple one in terms of coding with users creating clones and using the colour effect blocks to turn one picture into many with varying colours. There is user interactivity by clicking on one of the clones to change the colours until the perfect pop art is created.
This project focuses on the native fauna (numbat for WA and possum for VIC) taking a road trip around famous and unique places to visit. As the animal travels it reveals a title and photo of each location, while drawing the road trip on the state map. The Victorian road trip features places such as the Great Ocean Road and Glenrowan, home of Ned Kelly. The Western Australian road trip features places such as the Pinnacles and the Pink Lake.
HASS curriculum
These projects have been designed to be an integrated approach to teaching Digital Technologies and HASS.
In year 3 these projects can be used towards the achievement standards of HASS:-
- describe diverse characteristics of different places at the local scale and describe similarities and differences between the characteristics of these places
- identify connections between people and the characteristics of places
- identify the importance of different celebrations and commemorations for different groups
In year 4 these projects can be used towards the achievement standards of HASS:-
- they describe and compare the diverse characteristics of different places at local to national scale
- students identify the interconnections between people and the environment
Technologies curriculum
In year 3/4 band of the curriculum these projects can be used towards the achievement standards:-
- describe how social factors influence the design of solutions to meet present and future needs
- students outline and define needs, opportunities or problems
- students generate and record design ideas for an audience using graphical and non-graphical representation techniques including algorithms
- they plan a sequence of steps (algorithms) to create solutions, including visual programs
- students use agreed protocols when collaborating, and creating and communicating ideas, information, and solutions online
Extending the projects
As with all of our projects, these can be adapted, and challenges added, to suit any year level and context. Imagine taking the road trip context and turning it into an around-the-world adventure. Or creating pop art based on a student’s drawing. The opportunities are endless.
Code of Origin
As with all of our projects, we have designed a suite of support resources to help. You can:-
- Use our Code Along videos. In the videos, Kaye teaches the coding project online so that all the adult in the room needs to do is hit play and stop where needed. Subscribe to our channel to keep up to date when new videos are added.
- Project starters can all be found in our starter Scratch Studio
- You can share your completed projects with Code Club Australia and have them shared in our Code of Origin studio
- Print a certificate for everyone who was involved. Certificates are in the extra resource section of each project, or on our Code of Origin page on our website.
- Most importantly, have your coders vote for the winning state! The form only has 6 questions and takes less than a minute to complete.
If you are working on any of our Code of Origin projects don’t forget to tag us on social media. We would love to see how you are progressing!
Happy coding!
Kaye North, Code Club Australia
