Creative Transform Geography lessons for elementary school.

The school garden club lost its broad bean seedlings to a late frost, so Year 4 set out to build an alarm over three lessons. In the first lesson groups code a micro:bit to show the temperature from its built-in sensor, and for a week they take the boards in clear waterproof boxes to three spots around the beds (by the wall, in the open bed and under the hedge) at 9am, midday and 3pm, leave them for five minutes and record the readings in a class table. Back in class they compare the spots, find which is coldest in the mornings, and agree a warning level a few degrees above freezing, because the board's sensor reads a little warmer than the air. Each group then codes an alarm that checks the temperature every minute and, once it drops below their level, shows a snowflake (and plays a tone on V2 boards) and keeps showing it until button A is pressed, and tests it by holding a cold pack against the board. On nights when frost is forecast the alarms go into the cold frame on a fresh battery pack, and the garden club checks them before school.

Tools: micro:bit, MakeCode Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Over three lessons, Year 5 pairs turn what they know about the water cycle into a working model in Scratch, on class accounts the teacher manages. The teacher provides a starting project with a sea, hills, a sun sprite and a slider for sun strength, and pairs write the rest: vapour sprites that rise from the sea faster when the sun is stronger, a cloud that grows each time vapour reaches it, and rain that starts once the cloud's water variable passes a level the pair chooses, then runs down the hill into the river and back to the sea. Pairs test their model by moving the slider and checking it behaves as they expect, then fix it when it does not, for example when the cloud rains for ever because its variable never goes down. In the last lesson pairs try each other's models and write under their own what it shows about the cycle and one thing real clouds do that it leaves out.

Tools: Scratch Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 5 are asking "Where and when is our school noisiest?" in a local fieldwork unit taught over two lessons. Each of six groups codes a micro:bit V2 to measure the sound level with its microphone every ten seconds, send the number by radio with its site letter and also log it to the board's own memory; the teacher's hub micro:bit, plugged into a laptop, receives the numbers and MakeCode draws them as live lines on the board. Groups predict which site will be loudest, then staff place the boards at agreed spots within radio range of the classroom, checked in a test run beforehand (for example outside the dining hall, the playground, the front entrance and the library), from 11.30 to 1.30, recording nothing but the sound level. For the first half hour the class watches the lines move and notes what causes each rise, such as the first lunch sitting arriving, and next lesson they read the full logged record from every board against the timetable. They build a noise map of the school showing the loudest and quietest places and times, and each child writes a paragraph recommending where a quiet reading garden should go.

Tools: micro:bit, MakeCode Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

For two weeks Year 6 have taken readings at 9am from the school weather station: rainfall from the gauge in millimetres, temperature, cloud cover in eighths of the sky and wind strength on the Beaufort scale. Over two lessons, pairs type the readings into four Scratch lists and code a presenter sprite that steps through the days, showing the date and each value in a speech bubble. The weather on screen is driven by the numbers: the more rain in the list, the more raindrop clones fall, cloud sprites appear in proportion to the cloud cover, and the trees sway harder as the Beaufort number rises, while the presenter chooses what to advise, such as wellies or a sun hat, from rules the pair writes. Pairs test the logic by changing one reading to an extreme value to check the animation responds, then add one idea of their own, such as a frost layer when the temperature is below 2°C. Children work on teacher-managed Scratch accounts with projects unshared, and through the following week a different pair adds each morning's reading and runs their report on the board.

Tools: Scratch Nine ideas for your own version in Generate