2. Introduce the idea of output. To fully understand this concept, we must also understand the idea of input. Input is
something given to the program by the user, while output is something given to the user by the program. A simple
analogy is that of a vending machine, with the input being the money that is put in and the output being the food
item that the vending machine releases.
Discussion: Can students think of other real-life examples of input and output?
3. Brainstorm with students to generate ideas for their animated story. For this project, students are encouraged to
consider how rocks are transformed from one type into another. Some sample prompts include:
o What are the three types of rocks?
o How does each type of rock form?
o How do natural elements like the weather, temperature, and time play a part in their formation?
o What are the differences between the types of rocks?
o What are physical properties or characteristics of each rock type?
o Where do we find examples of each of the three types of rocks in Canada?
Planning Our Project:
Provide students with the animated story project planner and encourage students to create between two and four
scenes in which each stage of the rock cycle is demonstrated. Students should outline what will happen in each scene
by drawing pictures and writing a few words or sentences, including any dialogue that will appear on screen, and starting
to plan their code, if applicable. Teachers may wish to provide a list of words from which to choose, a scribe, or other
assistive technology to support students.
Creating Our Project:
Since every student’s project will be unique, there is no single, step-by-step set of instructions to follow; however, the
information below will support you in the general process of creating an animated story, as well as key features that
students will likely want to include. This sample code further demonstrates how the project might work and please note
that there is code included for each of the sprites and the stage. For your reference, Scratch determines where to display
sprites and controls movement using a Cartesian coordinate system, with (0,0) being the center of the screen and it may
be helpful to pre-teach this concept, if it is one with which students are unfamiliar.
1. Choose or create your backdrop(s) for the project. If adding multiple backdrops, all of them can be added now or
later on.
2. Delete the cat sprite that is automatically added to your project and press the “choose a sprite“ button to select a
new sprite. You may wish to add all sprites that will be needed at this time. Remember that each sprite is
programmed separately, so be sure that you have selected the correct sprite before starting to write your code.
3. Your code must always start with an Event block. In this project, you will likely use the “When Green Flag Clicked“
block. You will also likely use the “When I Receive ()“ block, in combination with the “Broadcast ()“ block throughout
your code to trigger events to create the appearance of interactions between your sprites.
4. Some key features you may wish to use to set a “starting state” for your sprites include:
a. Go To X () Y () will allow you to set a static position for your sprite. This can be used at the start of a stack
of code in order to set a “starting position”
b. The Show and Hide blocks can be used intermittently throughout your code in order to have sprites appear
on screen or become “invisible” until a later time.
c. If you plan on having a sprite rotate at any point in your code, you will also want to set a starting direction
for your sprites using the Point In Direction () block.
Please note that Scratch does not automatically “reset” your sprites when you replay your code, so setting a starting
position, direction, and state of show/hide is often necessary.