2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As coding becomes more prevalent, it is often seen as “hard and boring” [1], discouraging students from pursuing it [2]. This poses a problem as the future requires more coders than are currently entering the industry [3]. Further emphasis on the importance of teaching coding to students can be seen through its benefit to young children’s development of soft skills such as creativity, communication, and various thinking skills [4]. This raises the question of how to engage children in coding from an early age. A hands-on approach in classrooms can spark curiosity and engagement in learners [5].

This paper reports on a STEM integration project based around the co-creation of 28 integrated units of work, one for each term over the seven primary years. Coding is part of the robotics theme which begins in Year 1 with a focus on ‘Symbols’ before moving into ‘Coding’ in Year 3, ‘Sensors’ in Year 4, and ‘Electronics’ and ‘Robotics’ in Year 6. Bruner’s spiral curriculum [6] is utilised throughout the project as concepts are introduced and then reintroduced with increasingly complexity. Students are first exposed to coding in kindergarten when they use micro:bits to generate random numbers for use in tallies and tables. In Year 1, students explore Morse code and learn to program micro:bits to light up with a dot or a dash depending on the button pressed. Students then apply and extend their existing knowledge of math symbols into coding through a game where students are each given two cards; one containing a random number, and one containing a symbol (<, >, =). While students stand in a circle facing each other, deciding which symbol card to display based on the chosen number cards becomes a diagnostic tool to demonstrate whether students can use symbols as an application of conditional statements.

Using pseudocode, flowcharts, and conditional statements, students also learn to represent rules for the game rock paper scissors. Students who participated in the activities showed increased levels of enjoyment and understanding of the concepts being taught, affirming the link between engagement and learning [2]. This hands-on approach can be applied to teach coding fundamentals while keeping students engaged, potentially growing interest in coding and STEM fields for the future.