What’s Right With Our Schools: Middle Valley Elementary E-Lab
Hixson, TN (WDEF) – A strong background in Computer Science is essential as our world becomes more tech driven. Hamilton County is a global leader in training the coders of tomorrow.
Are you not sure what coding is?
Students at Middle Valley Elementary can explain.
Allyson DeYounng is the Principal at Middle Valley.
She explains, “This is a part of our E-lab, that was that we received three years ago. We started this work from the Volkswagen E-labs that were provided to schools, and we were the first elementary school to receive this, and so, really the work that you’re observing and seeing today is a part of a grant that Hamilton county’s innovation team received from the funding from Amazon, called Boot Up. Boot Up is a professional development that helps our students learn how to code.”
She continues, “And so our students are from kindergarten to fifth grade are having the opportunity to be in our fabrication lab in our E-lab.”
Kenzi Havey is a 4th grader at Middle Valley.
Kenzi explains, “You could code something, and it’d do just like what it will, and like whenever you’re coding it, you could, it could have some problems but you could fix it if.”
4th grader Ava Goodrich chips in, “You want like a certain background, but you can’t find it on coding, you can go to google search and search up like anything you want.”
Fellow student Camden Davis adds, “Coding is basically where you make something or someone do something. Like you can make a letter to a flip, or make a make like a squirrel race.”
Sierra Magee is the E-Lab Specialist at Middle Valley.
She concludes, “This sets them up to be successful in the future. They are, we have kindergartners that are coding and doing things that adults don’t know how to do. So, we’re setting them up to be so successful since we are Hamilton county is the global leaders in this kind of work. We’re setting them up to be a step ahead of their their peers in the future. The way that I feel like it benefits our students, is that when you think about a global society, and we think about computer technology and all that’s going on around us, with innovation. Our children are really being able to get a foundation. They’re learning how to be able to take these computer science skills; how they’re being integrated into their curriculum, not just in a single classroom. I mean, it’s about integrating these computer science skills. That’s really powerful.”
