SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 73
Building Numeracy Skills with Robotics

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The Ministry of Education defines numeracy as "the ability, willingness and perseverance to interpret and apply mathematical understanding to solve problems in contextualized situations, and to analyze and communicate these solutions in ways relevant to the given context."

The district's 2019 - 2020 Learning Action Plan lists numeracy as one if its top priorities. Numeracy is considered a foundational skill and core competency.

Grade 6 and 7 students in Mike Caputo's class at Westmount Elementary have wrapped up a robotics pilot project involving these defined numeracy skills. Following a tour of the Kamloops Airport, the students developed a solution to an identified challenge, built a robot as part of the solution, and then presented their ideas to representatives from the airport.

Solutions included ideas for moving luggage through the airport, connecting customers with food services and enhancing security.

"This process has been absolutely amazing," said Caputo. "Students who normally don't talk to one another have been working together, helping each other. I am indebted to RBC, the Kamloops Airport, and to Elizabeth DeVries."

He's referring to a set of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)-funded robotics kits obtained by SD73's district technology coordinator DeVries, last year. DeVries facilitated a partnership between the Kamloops Airport and Caputo's class to create this pilot project.

Students benefit from the math connections and the application of numeracy skills that come out of working with robotics, she said. "So much of the work with robotics depends on where the teacher takes it.

"Every single line of code that students write, where they make a robot move, involves math. Things like estimation, prediction, application of units of measurement, and testing. Then they have to make a change and do it again. Without intentionally drawing a student's attention to the math, it's amazing to see how they are actually mathing' so hard the whole time, without really noticing."

DeVries will be following up with her community connections to explore new opportunities for plugging robotics into the community. The idea is to enhance the sense of place in innovation, and build the experience of students in order to design for a client.

"This looks like innovation. Westmount was exploring a connection with the Airport, Kay Bingham is looking at a connection in sustainability in Kamloops, then Kay Bingham will pass the kit onto Arthur Stevenson... and so on.

"It is a work in progress and I hope to be able to have another class come back to the airport later this school year," she said. "We will see what is possible.  The feedback received to date with the community partnership (from the Airport) was very positive."