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The ‘Hour of Code’ at the Brown School

Yesterday, we held an ‘Hour of Code’ event at the Brown School in Somerville, MA.  If you haven’t heard of the ‘Hour of Code’, it is an event sponsored by a nonprofit called Code.org to get everyone spending an hour learning to write code.

Why?  The idea isn't to turn everyone in the nation into computer programmers. The idea is to motivate people—especially students—to take the time to understand what computer science is and how it is increasingly influencing commerce, politics, medicine, education, design, science and society.

See, the United States is facing a growing shortage of skilled programmers. A relatively few high schools teach the subject and very few kids actually take classes in computer science, even in college. The numbers are even worse when it comes to the participation of girls and women and blacks and Latinos.

90% of K-12 schools in the U.S. do not teach computer science.
In many countries (including China, the United Kingdom and Australia), computer science is—or soon will be—required.  Kids in these countries take coding classes in elementary school.  They get it—and so should we—if we want to continue to be the smartest and most prosperous country in the world.

The key takeaway is that the ‘Hour of Code’ isn’t enough.  After the excitement of this event fades, we need to go back to the hard work of improving our STEM education and getting computer science into the classroom, starting in elementary school.  Code.org has a great document which describes how to accomplish this. 

Some cities have already started moving forward on this and  Massachusetts just released a new plan on improving STEM education in our state:

• Last week, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced a $1 million investment to expand computer science instruction in New York City schools beginning in the fall of 2014.
• Chicago is laying the groundwork to become the first urban school district in the country to add the subject to its elementary core.

OK, enough of the serious stuff!  It was plain old fun, to see our kids, parents, working together with technology.  There was energy in the air—kids collaborating with each other, robots moving across screens, lots of smiling faces, and the joy of accomplishment!

I have always worked in this field and have loved computers since high school.  I felt genuinely good watching it all, and a bit proud too.  Many thanks to the volunteers, families and our principal—Kathleen Seward—for her leadership and sponsorship of the event.

If you want to learn more about this topic and learn computer science beyond this ‘Hour of Code’ event, try some of these other tutorials.

Lessons Learned with Tomato Seedlings

I have planted a number of vegetables from seeds over the past few years with mixed success.  This year has been my best for germination having used one of the kits below.  The peat pellets stay moist, the water gets draw up from the bottom with a capillary mat, and the plastic top keeps the moisture in.  I had more than an 80% germination rate on my tomato seedlings.

Unfortunately, I am now dealing with ‘leggy’ seedlings which I could have addressed earlier.  Leggy seedlings happen for the same reason crooked houseplants happen. The plant grows towards the light and, since the light is too far away, the plant tries to accelerate its height to get close enough to the light to survive. Unfortunately, there is only a limited amount of growth a plant can do. What it gains in height, it sacrifices in the width of the stem. As a result, you get long, floppy seedlings.

Other reason for ‘leggy’ seedlings include:

• Not enough light during the day.  Recommendations range from 12-18 hours per day.
• Not turning off the heat mat, once the first true leaves are found.
• No keeping the grow lights close enough.  They should be 2-3 inches over the top of the plants, so they don’t have to ‘reach’ to get to the light.
• Not transplanting early enough.  Once you see the first true leaves, it is time to transplant them.

You can apparently plant the tomato seedling all the way up the green part on the stem (anything white can go into the ground).  This will help compensate for any ‘leggy’ seedlings.

Geocaching Storage Containers

For Christmas last year I asked Santa for a new GPS unit (Garmin eTrex Venture HC), specifically to try out Geocaching with my kids.  If you have never tried geocaching, it’s basically a technology-enabled treasure hunt.  It’s a great way to get outside and even 5+-year old kids can use the compass and distance counter on the GPS.

We also hid our first geocache for the first time at the top of Bretton Woods.  Turns out we violated some of the rules for hiding geocaches (private land), so the cache couldn’t be registered at Geocaching.com.  However, I was able to register it at OpenCaching, so others can find it.

Also, I had ordered some cache containers from the e-store of Geocaching.com.  However, when I went to order some more the other day, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.  There are plenty of micro cache options, but not small-to-medium size containers.  So I found another source—food storage containers.  These Kinetic Go Green containers are airtight, watertight, and come in various sizes.  And much cheaper than buying the same thing from Geocaching.com.

Make sure to print out stash notes, log sheets, and a sticker for your storage container.  You can find some of these at TechBlazer.

Happy geocaching!  I’m a big fan of this new sport.

Albion Park – Somerville, MA

I had heard quite a bit about the newly renovated Albion Park in Somerville, MA.  So I immediately went online to try and find some updated photos/videos of the park.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find any.

So, during out recent visit to the park I decided I would put some of that content together for other parents wondering the same thing.  The renovations are really wonderful—this is park definitely worth visiting!

Click on this link to see pictures of the park before the renovation.

Here is a video of the park, which gives you a very good sense of how everything is laid out.

Here are some new photos of the park.  The park setup is really interesting.  There are a few tables upon entry into the park which are perfect for relaxing/lunch.  Additionally, in the middle is an elevated area of grass which is perfect for picnics too (plus the kids can roll down the gradual hill).  Then there are two playground structures, one for older kids and the other for younger kids.  Half the park is dedicated to a basketball court.  And one corner of the park has a water play section with fountains, jets, etc.  Finally, there is a new community garden in the back area as well.

 

To get the location and directions to the playground click here.