Coding and Sound in Grade 3

Through my work this year engaging with teachers to encourage a Project-Based Learning strategy in their classrooms, I have had the opportunity to work with one of my grade 3 classes this week!

The grade 3 class is currently learning about sound in science class and the teacher wanted to bring in some hands-on coding and technology use to help the students visualize the pitch and the sounds that they are hearing. I was able to work with the teacher to develop a plan to have students first learn about different types of pitch, and then figure out how to visualize high and low pitch using micro:bit units connected to their Chromebooks. The teacher and I did some preliminary work to help students and then had them develop ‘code’ that when a specific button was pressed on the micro:bit, a visual representation of the high or low pitch appeared on the screen, and the tone was played through their headphones (which they had to figure out how to connect to the micro:bit).

The biggest joy that came out of this activity was the “ah-ha” moments that many students were able to experience as they accomplished a number of tasks.

1. Students being able to successfully connect all the specific hardware together correctly
2. Students successfully building the code and transferring it to their micro:bit
3. Students experiencing all of the pieces of the project coming together, and seeing the visualizations match the sound and them understanding the relationship between everything

Overall, it was a wonderful project to be a part of and to see the genuine understanding come together for so many of the students. Since they were the ones who had to the majority of the work and the content was not “spoon-fed” to them, the learning became much more memorable and authentic.

There are already some follow-up activities planned, including using tuning forks and engaging in more coding options to visualize the pitch and sounds that they are exploring and learning about.