Local authorities are being invited to trial a new educational scheme which uses coding to teach children how to cross the road safely.
Green Cross Coding has been developed by Northumberland County Council’s Highway Improvement Team, in partnership with Northumbria University and schools across the region.
The initiative is designed to teach children the Green Cross Code sequence by programming the actions on a pocket computer, the BBC micro:bit.
Lesson plans and road safety information are available free of charge via the Green Cross Coding website. The lesson takes about 90 minutes and can be adapted according to the needs of individual classes.
It is described as ‘simple for both staff and children to follow’ and ‘great fun to do’, which results in ‘deeper learning and lasting memory of the road skills’.
Andrew Dow, Northumbria University, said: “This unique scheme aims, through coding, to raise the awareness of stop, look, listen, think, and safer places to cross.
“The way that we learn to cross the road has very close links to how you create a computer program. We have found that after one lesson, children remember the simple steps of what to do before you cross the road, for a longer time than through a road safety assembly.
We have created the lesson with the aim that teachers can deliver this themselves in school.”
The work by the researchers at Northumbria University was supported by funding from EPSRC (EP/T022582/1).
For more information contact Andrew Dow by email.
The Green Cross Code clearly states “Look All Around”, I’m afraid “look right, look left, look right again” is outdated. We teach our children in Barnet that looking left and right is not always enough. For this reason, we would not use this resource unfortunately. Great idea though.
S.O, London
+1