This project is intended to be used in support of an "unplugged" activity to help middle school students understand some big ideas about variables. This is a work in progress.
Variables are like Containers An Unplugged Group Activity Adapted by Mark Miller, Henry McCathern, Deborah Pierce Based on Box Variables from Queen Mary University of London What are the big ideas? • Variables are like containers (like boxes or envelopes) • Outside of the container is its name, like: x, y, catcolor, score, yourname, myturn?, or health • Inside the container is its value, like: 10, 0, orange, 5, henry, true, or 100 • Try not to confuse the name of a variable with its value. In Scratch, you use the Make a Variable button to name a new variable. You use the Set ___ to ___ block to put a value into a variable. • A variable holds only one value at a time. • When you get the value of a variable, you get a copy. (The variable’s value is not lost or changed by getting it.) • When you put a new value into a variable, whatever was stored there before is lost. • When working with variables, the sequence (order) of steps matters. • Variables let you talk about something even when you don’t know what is inside the container.
