Hour of Code
During Computer Science Education Week 2019 HNMCS once again took part in Hour of Code activities. The approach was a little different this year as HNMCS has a thriving and successful Computer Science pathway in grades 10, 11 and 12 so we focused on giving students in grades 5 to 9 an opportunity to explore different aspects of what Computer Science actually is.
Grades 5 and 6 worked with Mr. MacLeod to problem solve in an unplugged environment, learning computer sorting techniques such as 'bubble sort' and 'quick sort'. They also got to program their robots (Ms. Mather and Ms. Lubanski) to navigate a series of obstacles.
The Grade 7 and 8 students worked with Ms. Guay using resources from the Canada Learning Code website. The girls spent an hour learning how to code basic commands and animation, using languages such as Scratch and JavaScript.
Grade 9 students were given an overview of the Grade 10 Introduction to Computer Studies (ICS2O) course by Mr. MacLeod and then spent some time trying out the various fun and engaging code based activities found on the Hour of Code website.
Earlier this year, the Middle School and ICS2O students also participated in the Beaver Computing Contest, run by the University of Waterloo. This contest involved solving multiple choice problems with a focus on logical and computational thinking.
STEM Day
HNMCS Robotics hosted the third annual STEM Day at HNMCS where students from all grades were engaged to fun and exciting based to excite our all-girl community in STEM.
The grade 5s made magnetic pens where they were able to learn more about magnets and how forces of attraction work. The grade 6s got into the Christmas spirit and assembled their own electrical circuits to create their personalized light-up Christmas cards. The grade 7s participated in a Christmas themed math activity where they had to solve math equations where the answers were matched to specific colours. These colours were then used to adorn their math themed ornaments. The grade 8s were able to drive the competition and practice robots in a friendly competition of the FIRST Robotics 2019 Game - Destination Deep space.
In our senior school, the grade 9s explored the science behind making catapults, while the grade 10s built DNA models and the grade 11s got hands on experience with casting. Finally, the grade 12’s took a spirited trip down memory lane answering math, science and trivia questions from their years at HNMCS. They put the STEAM to STEM with special Christmas ornaments.
