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Scratch and Vernier

Students can learn coding by purposefully and successfully applying their computational thinking skills to our fun hands-on coding activities. By design, these activities help students make natural connections between the digital and physical worlds.

Why Choose Scratch and Vernier Go Direct® Sensors

Engage your students in physical computing with the Go Direct® Force and Acceleration Sensor, meant to motivate them to collaborate, promote computational thinking, and encourage creative problem solving. They can make a Sprite move in response to the sensor spinning, tilting, or falling, or create an interactive art project using the sensor’s force data.

Benefits

  • Motivates students to collaborate and employ problem solving
  • Promotes computational thinking
  • Challenges students to engage in physical computing
  • Facilitates opportunities for students to use creativity to bring art and storytelling to their coding
  • Brings real-world data and interaction into coding projects when used with Vernier Go Direct Force and Acceleration Sensor

We’ve designed a full module of Vernier Scratch activities—including a teacher’s guide—that helps students sharpen coding skills and gain valuable experience with data‑collection technology.

Using the Vernier Go Direct Extension with Scratch

For complete instructions, visit the Vernier partner extension page on the Scratch site.

1.

Turn on your sensor by pressing the power button.

2.

Open the Scratch editor.

Example Projects from Scratch

These example projects introduce students to many fun, creative ways to use the Go Direct® Force and Acceleration Sensor.

Beginner

Shake, push, and toss the sensor to make music.

Beginner

Turn the sensor face down to change day into night.

Beginner

Spin and push the sensor to steer the ship.

Vernier Scratch Activities

Help your students engage with coding through these free interactive activities. No sensor is required, but each activity offers an optional extension using the Go Direct Force and Acceleration Sensor.

Beginner

This activity gives students the opportunity to use coding to make dynamic, interactive art. Students write code in Scratch to create a parallax effect that gives their landscapes depth and complexity.

Beginner

This activity challenges students to use block-based coding to tell the story of Isaac Newton’s “year of wonders.” Once they’ve told the story of Newton in quarantine, they can use code to tell their own stories about their lives in quarantine.

Beginner

This activity starts with a nearly empty Scratch project that includes only a highway backdrop and a pair of sample sprites for an ambulance and car. When students are finished, they have a playable game.

Beginner

Students code an interactive sustainable living poster promoting green‑living ideas with their peers.

Intermediate

In this coding activity, students use block-based coding to build a lunar lander game with custom sprites and stages.

Advanced

This activity combines coding and an exploration of the ideal gas laws. Students can change multiple variables and observe changes. 

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Download all of the Vernier Scratch Activities

All of the beginning and intermediate-level Vernier Scratch activities above are available to download as a complete course module for your convenience. The module also includes a teacher guide to help you best utilize these activities in your class.

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