As part of a school-wide enrichment Brown Bag Seminar series, 22 fifth graders at Berry Hill Elementary School in Syosset took a trip to Syosset High School to meet with Advanced Computer Coding students and get a close-up look at the games they have been programming using Java.
Under the guidance of high school students, Berry Hill students wrote some code and tested the games. Berry Hill enrichment teacher Mary Kolkhorst arranged the trip in conjunction with high school teacher Christine Owens, math coordinator Angela Kozlowski and the support of Berry Hill Principal Joanne Mannion, who attended the trip as well.
The Brown Bag seminar was a follow-up to a Google Hangout video-conference between the two groups held earlier this year. Brown Bag seminars involve students who volunteer their recess time to participate in enrichment opportunities of interest.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn more about programming and to see the code behind the video games created by the high school students,” said Kolkhorst, who has held Brown Bag Seminars at Berry Hill on a wide variety of topics. “Our kids have now become beta testers. They had a lot of fun meeting with the high school students, testing their games and offering feedback. In turn, the high school students were wonderful and informative mentors.”
—Syosset Schools
