For Immediate Release

Monday, Dec. 12, 2018

Contact: John Guilfoil
Phone: 617-993-0003

Rockland Public Schools Participate in “Hour of Code”

ROCKLAND — Superintendent Alan Cron is pleased to announced that the Rockland Public Schools will once again participate in this year’s Hour of Code, celebrating computer science and technology.

The Hour of Code is a worldwide event that has been held annually in December during “Computer Science Education Week” since 2013 and Rockland Public Schools has participated every year since inception. The 2018 Computer Science Education Week was December 3-9, and Rockland has been celebrating with a variety of projects at all of its schools.

“It is so important to nurture the interest of our students in computer science and programming,” said Rockland STEAM Coach Lisa Ryan. “As students persevere through coding challenges, it nurtures critical thinking, logic and creativity that will help them now and in the future.”

Rockland’s Hour of Code Events:

Elementary Schools

Schools: Esten Elementary School, Jefferson Elementary School, Memorial Park Elementary School. STEAM Teachers: Mrs. Rachel Mack and Mrs. Deb Hogan

• Kindergarten and Grade 1: Introduction to coding with hopscotch coding using laminated coding tiles on the floor; students lay out the coding order which includes arrow tiles and motion tiles like clap, stomp and pat knees; their partner performs the code.
• Grade 2: Students will expand on sequencing, use loops for repeated patterns of code, and write code to draw a picture on the screen to match the one they have drawn on paper using activities from code.org.
• Grade 3: Learn the fundamentals of game-based design to create a Star Wars game with events and commands; students can choose a main character, characters to chase, sounds to play, point values to win the game, and new characters to “spawn” using code.org.
• Grade 4: Use a sandbox coding environment to create an animated Google Doodle with events and commands; students create loops to make their images rotate, bounce, change colors and size, say words and make sounds using MIT’s Scratch.

Rogers Middle School

Technology Teacher: Mrs. Debbie Orth

• Grades 5-8: Students used Code.org’s new Dance Party theme using events and commands; students chose from a variety of dancers, moves, dances, background effects and more to create unique dance parties.

Rockland High School

Teacher for all classes: Mrs. Angela Armstrong

• Computer Science: Created a game using Code.org App lab
• AP Biology : Use Google’s Create a Logo activity to make a logo that relates to a current course topic (MIT’s Scratch)
• AP Computer Science Principles: Programmed the NAO robot

“The Hour of Code is designed to demystify code and show that computer science is not rocket science—anybody can learn the basics,” said Hadi Partovi, founder and CEO of Code.org. “Over 100 million students worldwide have tried an Hour of Code. The demand for relevant 21st-century computer science education crosses all borders and knows no boundaries.”

About Hour of Code:

The Hour of Code is about more than celebrating computer science and coding. It’s about inspiring students to try something that’s challenging. Engaging in computational thinking helps nurture critical thinking, logic and creativity. The iterative and problem-solving methods are related to growth mindset and reinforces skills that will make students successful in other curricula areas and in life. It’s also an excellent career choice for our students.

• Nationally, 58 percent of new STEM jobs are in computer science while only 8 percent of STEM graduates are in computer science
• Massachusetts currently has over 19,000 open computing jobs.
• The average salary for a computing occupation in Massachusetts is $103,278, which is significantly higher than the average salary in the state: $62,110.

About Code.org:

Code.org is a 501c3 public non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. Its vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer programming. After launching in 2013, Code.org organized the Hour of Code campaign – which has introduced over 100 million students to computer science to date – and partnered with 70 public school districts nationwide to expand computer science programs. Code.org is supported by philanthropic donations from corporations, foundations and generous individuals, including Microsoft, Facebook, Infosys Foundation USA, Amazon, and others. For more information, please visit: code.org.