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Academy Adventures Midtown combines coding with physical play

Students are reigning 'Unruly Splats' champs
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TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Students at a Tucson charter school are literally jumping into coding thanks to a new curriculum that combines coding and active play.

Every week, students at the K-5 Academy Adventures Midtown take a class on computer programming and coding.

Teachers work to combine learning with active play, making the skills-building curriculum more exciting and engaging for students.

"I think a lot of it is problem solving. A lot of the codes are broken down but they need to build the skill to do it on their own," says math teacher Emily Downard. "So I think later on on the road they can really be able to be problem solvers."

The school says it has participated in—and won—several national coding competitions.

One of those competitions was the Go Bananas Unruly Splats Competition, an international contest combines utilizes coding skills physical activity.

Academy Adventure students won the trophy for "most code blocks."

The pads used in Unruly Splats are connected to the tablet, and are uses to code different types of games. Teachers say they are already using them in everything from math to physical education classes.

Students too have their own favorite code they're learning:

"I think Morse Code because it's easy and pretty simple to do," says student Analea Grombly.

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