Peabody Recreation, Parks & Forestry is inviting the city’s youth to join the eScout Academy, which is at the forefront of extracurricular STEM education and dedicated to sparking curiosity and innovation in young minds.
EScout’s mission is to make learning both fun and impactful through activity-based classes that resonate with students.
Peabody Recreation, Parks & Forestry is offering online animation and game development courses via Zoom where children can dive into the world of digital creativity. Youth are split based on grade and level.
Children in grades 2-4 are able to join the Level 1 & 2 course.
In this interactive course, students are introduced to coding puzzles, express and apply computing steps and build and play with code blocks, like animation and music/sound blocks.
They will build fun games and animations using Events, Conditional and Repetition concepts, and as students progress, they will delve into more advanced game design, followed by unplugged activities.
Children in grades 4-6 are able to join the Level 3 course, which equips students with foundational coding skills and computational thinking through interactive game design. Students will be introduced to block-based coding, then tackle maze game creation before concluding with arcade and sports game development.
There is also a Level 1 course for children in grades 5-8 which focuses on developing games using code blocks and python. This course introduces foundational computing skills.
Participants will learn Python basics, including variables, loops and conditionals. Using these skills, they will create visuals, artwork, simulations and interactive games like Bounce!, Race and more, using loops and conditionals. This comprehensive introduction sets the stage for more complex programming tasks and project-based learning, complemented by a lot of unplugged activities each week.
For more information, visit tinyurl.com/Peabody-Coding. Classes begin the third week of September.
