Incorporating Micro:bits to Conductivity Data Collection

“Finally, a new data collection that ACTUALLY comes with lesson plans and how to videos!” 

Written by: Hannah Nakamoto

When I first approached the Micro:bits booth at my summer climate change professional development, I was scared. I had been feeling “behind the times” for a while because I hadn’t been integrating any sort of coding in my classroom. I wanted to make the jump, but as an already overwhelmed and overstimulated teacher, I had reservations. Common internal dialogue sounded something like this: 

“I’ve never coded before in my life. How am I supposed to teach my kids how to code?” 

“How many unpaid hours will it take for me to train myself, write lesson plans, and integrate this curriculum before I can actually put these devices to use?” 

“I refuse to implement something that will bore my students. Is this going to go above their heads?”

I kid you not, in about 15 minutes I was sold. As someone who has never had any coding experience EVER (no classes, no PD’s, NOTHING), I picked up on this software in about 3 minutes. Not only do these micro:bits come with their own bank of projects that will teach both you and your students how to block code in about 5 minutes, the projects are actually engaging and easy to integrate into lesson plans that already exist in your curriculum! A great example of this is the conductivity lesson I ran with my students a few days ago.

My favorite thing about this particular lesson is that it is a prime example of a teacher (me), taking a lesson I already do (my conductivity lesson), and integrating micro:bits into it with ease. Here’s how it went!

Planning: 

When choosing what lesson I wanted to use to introduce my students to their micro:bits, I had two criteria: 

1. I did not want to reinvent the micro:bit wheel. 

   1. I specifically wanted my students to perform a lab that involved code that the micro:bit company already had a premade lesson for. Micro:bit has a LONG list of premade tutorials that teachers can look through and utilize in their classes. As someone who is new to coding, this was incredibly helpful. 

2. I wanted to use a lesson that I knew wouldn’t be too challenging for students. 

   1. I chose my conductivity lesson because of how easy it is for students to visualize whether or not a material is conductive using the conductivity meter. Students also traditionally come into this lesson with quite a bit of background knowledge, making it the ideal opportunity to introduce something that may be new to them (like block coding!). 

As the year continues to progress, I plan on easily inserting these premade tutorials inside of other labs and assignments. 

A screenshot of micro:bit’s conductivity tutorial, showing the block code necessary to create a conductivity meter.

Implementation: 

I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of my students already had a great deal of experience with block coding. For the few students who did need support, I was able to either walk them through the coding process myself OR show them the helpful how to video that our friends at micro:bit so generously allow us to view for free. I teach a group of 11th grade physics students, so imagine a coding lesson that took my students 10 minutes might take a group of middle schoolers 30 or 40 minutes. It’s important to remain flexible during this first implementation. 

If you are in a time crunch, one way in which teachers can support students is to implement a “slow reveal,” which involves the teacher slowly revealing different parts of the code to students as time progresses. An example of this is shown below: 

Hint 1

Hint 2

Hint 3

Hint 4

I also loved that micro:bit’s make code allows students to take their skills a step further and challenge themselves by coding using JavaScript if they choose to do so. I let the students know that I would give them a jolly rancher if they were able to complete their code in this way AND explain what each portion of their code meant. Many decided to take up the challenge! 

Reflection: 

In the future, I plan on creating a google form so that I can survey the students about a week or two before implementing the micro:bit lesson. For example, I would like to know which students have coding experience and which do not so that I can create more equitable groups. I also plan on implementing less scaffolds surrounding coding from the beginning and only offer hints and supports to students who seem to need them. For example, next year I plan to run a mini growth mindset warm up with the class, then give them 5 minutes of “individual struggle” time where they cannot speak with one another. After that, I will thank them for being willing to struggle through the problems and ask them to begin supporting each other. 

All in all, I am extremely grateful for this resource. I feel as though I have overcome a huge insecurity and integrated something that will prove to be wildly beneficial for my students. I can’t recommend these micro:bits enough and I appreciate all of the educators that encouraged me to explore this resource. 

Lesson Outline with background information, daily slides, handouts, and answer keys

Here is a video about the Types of Materials Lesson that uses the Micro:bits for data collection