An Unusual Discovery

Overview

An Unusual Discovery is a one-hour lesson designed to be completed within 45-75 minutes. Students watch a series of videos to create a coding project. Students personalize their project using mini-coding challenges called "add-ons.”

An Unusual Discovery: At-A-Glance

In this lesson, students will sequence dialogue to tell a story. They animate interactions between characters, their backdrops, and a surprising object. This lesson introduces students to computer science and block-based coding using Scratch for CS First.

To explore An Unusual Discovery videos and the Starter Projects, visit g.co/csfirst/discovery. If you get stuck, review the solution section of this lesson plan.

Digital materials are accessible online. Classroom kits are not available for one-hour activities.

An Unusual Discovery: Agenda Highlights

Direct students to log in to their CS First accounts at g.co/csfirst.
Students watch videos and create an "An Unusual Discovery" project in Scratch for CS First.
When there are five minutes left in class, instruct students to find the Wrap Up page and complete the short survey.
The projects of students in your class are automatically shared with your teacher account.
Instruct students to show their projects to a neighbor/classmate.
Discuss the lesson and facilitate a brief discussion about what students learned and experienced.
Tell me about the program you made today.

What was your favorite part of this lesson?
What did you learn about computer science and coding?
What was the most challenging part of this lesson?

CS First is aligned to the CSTA K-12 CS Standards, the K-12 CS Framework and the ISTE Standards for Students.
For more information visit, g.co/csfirst/standards.

Learning Objectives

By selecting add-on videos that present coding challenges, students will:

Use event blocks (like “when flag clicked”) to trigger a series of code.
Sequence at least 3 “say” blocks between two sprites (characters) to construct a dialogue.
Program a conditional so that the computer can make a decision based on a user response.
Produce repeated movements by applying control blocks to their program.

CS Topics Covered

Control structures: Sections of code that order the direction or flow of how a program functions. Control structures include conditionals and loops.
Debugging: The process of identifying and fixing error(s) in a program when it is not functioning as expected.

CS First projects are coded using Scratch, a block-based coding tool developed by the Scratch Foundation in collaboration with the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. Learn more about Scratch at scratch.mit.edu.

CS First lesson plans are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. See http://scratch.mit.edu

Add-on Solution Guide

Use this guide as a reference during the lesson to see what code might look like for each add-on.

Continue the Conversation

Let the Audience Decide

Program both character sprites to continue their conversation.

Character 1:

Character 2:

Program a question to the audience, and make something happen based on their response.

Add-on Solution Guide - continued

Code a Color Change	Paint Your Own Animation
Repeatedly change the color of the object.	Paint a new costume and change to different costumes.
Make Your Object Bounce	Create a Pulsing Object
Move the sprite all around the stage, then make it return to a specific point.	Bring the object to life by making the object grow and shrink.

Add-on Solution Guide - continued

Animate a Story Title	Add Sounds to Your Story
Draw a story title sprite, and program a thumbnail for the title of the story.	Add a sound to enhance the movement and play a song during the story.
Add an Object
Add another sprite to the story to create more action.