DECEMBER 2022

Magnet Power Wows Third Graders

Patrick Harmon, an assistant naturalist from Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES, visited Bedford Road School recently and encouraged third graders to think about mysterious forces they cannot even see.

“You’ve heard the phrase ‘May the force be with you,’” Harmon said, waving his arms like a light saber. “Raise your hands if you believe in the force.”

That was all it took to get the eight- and nine-year-olds in Christine Harris’s third grade class waving their arms toward the ceiling.

“Well, the magnetic field is an invisible force,” Harmon said. “And we can use that force to help clean up the environment.” 

He gave the children buckets of sand containing buried pieces of metal and two different tools to try and remove the metal. First, the third graders used plastic forks to sift through the sand. Then they used a magnet to lift pieces of metal from the sand. 

“When you used the forks, you still had to use your hands to pick things up,” Noa said. 

Leroy agreed. “The force from the magnet made cleaning the sand easier because it picked stuff up itself,” he said. 

Later, Harmon asked, “What is the world’s biggest magnet?”  

Children guessed the North Pole, the Eiffel Tower and the Equator before Harmon told them it was the earth itself.

Computer Science Whiz Educates Teachers

Dana Balin began coding in kindergarten when she saw her big sister, Chloe, using blocks of simple code to move a picture of a car across a screen. 

“I was amazed and wanted to know how she did that,” Dana said. “She told me, in older sister fashion, to figure it out myself. So, I did. When I got older and there were more opportunities presented to me, I just dove right in, and I never looked back.”

Dana, a Pleasantville High School sophomore, was the only student statewide invited to speak at the 2022 #CSforNY State Summit this fall. She told nearly 200 educators from across the state about the many opportunities she had to learn computer science in the Pleasantville Union Free School District. She also discussed her thoughts on how other districts might want to launch a K-12 computer science curriculum.

She was invited to speak by Dr. Cameron Fadjo, Pleasantville’s Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services and a founding member of #CSforNY. 

“I first met Dana when she was in eighth grade, and she was in her computer science quad rotation,” Dr. Fadjo said. “The library/media teacher was interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) education, so we teamed up. We did lessons on Supervised Machine Learning from the MIT DAILY AI curriculum and Dana was part of that class.” 

That is only one of the many opportunities to learn computer science in the Pleasantville Union Free School District. The district offers students simple, fun ways to start coding at Bedford Road School. Later, they move on to more challenging concepts and tasks in computer science, engineering and data analysis through courses ranging from engineering design in eighth grade to the new Project Lead the Way Cybersecurity course at the high school. 

“The goal is to empower every student in Pleasantville by building awareness around the vast and complex world of computing and engineering,” Dr. Fadjo said. “Our schools have developed a comprehensive roadmap for computer science education that ensures our students are being introduced to the concepts, tools, and technologies that will forever shape their world.” 

Clearly, the district’s curriculum has worked for Dana. 

“I moved to Pleasantville in fourth grade and every week we had a computer lab,” said Dana, who is 15. “We had small projects like simple Scratch Programming, and it kept everybody interested. Throughout middle school we kept building on that knowledge with HMTL, CSS and a JavaScript course from the Khan Academy. Then we had an artificial Intelligence program in eighth grade. I loved that. That is the field I want to go into.”

Dana, who took AP Computer Science in ninth grade, will have plenty more opportunities ahead. This year, she is concentrating on calculus and building the math skills that are the underpinning of computer science.

Fun and Games with Technology 

Aliya, a sixth grader, picked up a ball of tinfoil and lobbed it at a small, tinfoil-lined basketball hoop. After a few misses, Aliya made the basket and a song from High School Musical played on her laptop. 

“Together. Together. We’re all in this together.”  

Aliya was playing Bolton Basket, a game that she and two classmates -- Phoebe and Audrey – designed and built using MakeyMakey, an invention kit that can turn everyday objects into computer keys. Students can make just about anything control their computers by connecting a USB cable and alligator clips to MakeyMakey’s special circuit board.

“Instead of using your arrow keys and a space bar, we put wires into the MakeyMakey and it acts like the keys on your laptop,” 11-year-old Aliya said. “It creates a closed circuit. I did not know anything about circuits before. We used tinfoil because it can make electricity more easily than other materials.”

Still, she said, her favorite part of the project was decorating the diorama with big colorful letters and googly eyes stuck onto pictures of famous teen actors. 

That was all right with Marissa Fraher, the Pleasantville Middle School librarian who teaches sixth and seventh grade STEAM and fifth grade Inquiry Lab. She is in favor of whatever it takes to get students excited about science and technology.

“We work on a variety of engineering activities in sixth grade STEAM Lab, from designing a theme restaurant to digital citizenship to 3D design basics,” Fraher said. “Learners engage in a variety of STEAM experiences that expand upon prior work in mechanical, civil and electrical engineering fundamentals.”

MakeyMakey was the final project of the quarter for the sixth graders. Other students in the class used the special circuit boards to create soccer games, a claw machine and mini golf, among other fun projects. 

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