The mascot of Belview Elementary School is the Belview Bee.
Mrs. Bibb’s Belview Elementary School’s second-grade class work together to program small computers to perform a task.
Fitting, then, that on a colorful rug in the middle of Mrs. Bibb’s second-grade class, children are clustered around plastic mats printed with a grid of pictures of wheat, whales, whistles and cats with long whiskers.
The kids are programming a fist-sized computer shaped like a smiling yellow bee called a Bee-Bot.
Programming the bot, working together as a team, de-bugging and not giving up is part of an on-going effort to establish computer science skills in early education, and this is Virginia’s Computer Science Education Week.
The week is a national initiative dedicated to increasing awareness of “the transformative role of computing and the need to strengthen computer science education and the role it plays in related disciplines like education, technology, and space exploration,” said a release from Governor Northam’s office announcing Computer Science Education Week.
Virginia is the first state in the nation to adopt computer science and computational thinking, to include coding, as a core subject for all students according to the release, and the administration “is encouraging school districts, teachers, and students to explore coding by taking part in “hour of code” programs.”
Here on the colorful rug, the challenge is to tell the Bee Bot how to find all the “wh” words. First everyone has to recognize that the pictures of the wheelbarrow, whale, whispering people, and whiskery cat all represent words that start with “wh”.
One child is the “Navigator” he looks at the grid—four boxes straight ahead, turn left, go one box to “whale.” On a small white board he draws four arrows up, a left arrow, and one arrow up. Then the “Programmer” stabs buttons on top of the Bee-Bot, sets it down and it rolls forward, turns left and stops on the whale, whisker, whisper. Taking turns, they program and navigate and debug and record.
Computer science is one of the fastest growing industries in Virginia, so the state, and Governor Northam recognizes it as “the core of virtually all sectors of our economy”
Virginia is emphasizing efforts that expose the state’s students to computer science courses at every grade level.
As early as kindergarten, learning words like “algorithm” and “program” so they can recognize that vocabulary in later grades they’ll know what a “de-bugger” does.
“We decided to supply elementary schools with hands-on robots, these Bee-Bots, and color-coding bots called Ozobots,” Bibb said. “They’re just really approachable and easy to work with.”
The Bee-Bot is whirring across the mat stopping at all the “wh” words, but drives right over “whistle.”
“Did we get “whistle”? Bibb called. “What was the problem? What should the navigator and the de-bugger do now?”
The kids begin to count the boxes again and translate arrows onto the little white board.
“Remember,” Bibb said, “the navigator can only do what the programmer him to do. The jobs rely on each other.”
Computing is the number one source of all new wages in the United States. Virginia has the third highest concentration of technology workers of any state in the country, and ranks first for total number of computer science jobs.
“We don’t know what kinds of jobs these kids will need to be ready for. The best way we can serve them is to give them 21st century skills.”
The state effort is meant to be exciting not just for students, but for teachers too, Secretary of Education Atif Oarni said in the announcement.
“Teachers are also doing what is called “unplugged” work. Thy’ll be writing pamphlets or building something when they’re working on Ancient Culture subjects,” Belview librarian Becca Rainy in a mustard yellow T-shirt with a light bulb on the pocket and says “Free Thinker.” “What we’re hoping is that we’re supporting creative thinkers, problem solvers, good communicators and folks who can be versatile.”
Then it’s time for an assembly. The hall fills with children in lines. Under the sign that says “Belview: Home of the Bees!” one of them is wearing a T-shirt that says, “There will be mud, “ another says, “I can see the future.”