Celebrate Earth Day by turning Dash into your class’s eco‑hero with these hands‑on coding challenges that bring recycling, plant power, clean‑up missions, the water cycle, and wildlife rescue to life. Each activity weaves environmental science and block‑based programming into a fun, meaningful experience for young learners.
1. Recycle Relay (Gripper Kit)
- Objective: Teach students about sorting recyclables.
- Activity:
- Place different small objects (paper, plastic, aluminum) around the room.
- Program Dash to pick up and place each item into the correct category using the Gripper Kit.
- Discuss why sorting recyclables is important.
2. Draw a Flower (or Honeycomb) (Sketch Kit)
- Objective: Thinking about the importance of plants for converting CO2 into Oxygen or the the importance of Bees for pollination.
- Activity:
- Use the Sketch Kit to draw a tree, plant, flower, or honeycomb on the Sketch Mat or paper.
- This Sketch Kit card can be helpful when drawing a honeycomb or flower.
- You can use the Blockly program key on it (zpwr) to shortcut your way to the required code.
- Discuss the importance of plants and how they help convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, provide homes for animals, and serve as a source of food for nearly all creatures.
- Discuss how bees move pollen to the right spot in a flower so the flower can grow seeds that will later end up inside a fruit.
3. Earth Defender Bowling (Launcher)
- Objective: Demonstrate how pollution affects Earth and how we can “clean up” the planet.
- Activity:
- Set up bowling pins or paper cups decorated as pollutants (plastic bottles, oil spills, trash). You can have students decorate these!
- Program Dash to launch balls from the kit or soft objects like pom-poms at the “pollution” to “clean up” the Earth.
- Discuss ways we can reduce pollution.
4. Water Cycle Drawing (Sketch Kit)
- Objective: Illustrate the water cycle while programming Dash.
- Activity:
- Program Dash to move through a water cycle path (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection).
- Use the Sketch Kit to draw the cycle as Dash moves.
5. Save the Animals (Gripper Kit)
- Objective: Learn about how pollution affects animals and how we can help.
- Activity:
- Place small stuffed animals or images around a designated “polluted area.”
- Program Dash to carefully pick up and transport them to a “safe habitat.”
- Discuss how pollution impacts wildlife.
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