This summer I worked with the Interstate Drone League (iDrone) at the University of Idaho, developed and facilitated by Dr. Jae Ryu. In Dr. Ryu’s program, students build a drone from scratch and learn basic coding exercises using Arduino and MIT Scratch and hear local professionals share their applications to solve real-world problems.

Last summer, I worked at both an in-person camp in Sandpoint, Idaho and an online camp hosted for middle school aged students. Building upon my experience from the summer before, I had the opportunity to collaborate on a curriculum with iDrone, professors at the University of Idaho, a current University of Idaho student, and Shelly Harrop, a 5th grade teacher in Rigby, Idaho. Shelly and I first had the chance to work together in the previous summer via an online iDrone camp.

Shelly and I collaborated to build a curriculum that introduces coding and drones to 5th and 6th grade students. One of the goals of the curriculum was to ensure there wasn’t a barrier with resources or materials. Sometimes with STEM curriculum, there is a barrier with finding the materials or needing funding. We wanted to make it easy for educators to introduce drone technology and coding to their classrooms, without any challenges. Our driving question of the unit is, “How can we as students design a solution to a real-world, community problem using drone technology to improve our local communities?” Throughout the unit, students will investigate uses of drones, make connections to their community, and brainstorm how to use drones to solve real life problems that students identify within their communities. Students will create a prototype of their drone idea and will present their drones and findings to their peers in a Gallery Style presentation at the end of the unit.

In the unit, we collaborated with University of Idaho iDrone and incorporated resources from the program that would be easy for educators and students to access. We also enjoyed having the opportunity to collaborate with a University of Idaho student who created an iDrone workbook. This workbook provided guidance on how students could creatively interact with the material and allows space for students to brainstorm and note their ideas in multiple ways.