This week's featured article is "The Fragile Generation" by Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt, originally published in the December 2017 print issue.
This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward.
Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses
The post <I>The Best of Reason</I>: The Fragile Generation appeared first on Reason.com.
Sabra Brucker works as an executive assistant. Her husband, Dagan, is a fifth-generation farmer in Cropsey, Illinois, about 100 miles south of Chicago.
After many years of infertility and miscarriages, they finally became the parents of four young children: Addison, born in 2017; Andi, born in 2019; and twins Aiden and Arie, born prematurely in March 2021.
The Brucker family had never previously endured a run-in with child protective services. A series of medical complications involving the younger twin, Aiden, suddenly changed that. After the parents sought care for their sick child, they were falsely accused of breaking Aiden's ribs and subjected to months of humiliating inequity. And when that was over, the authorities refused to disclose the identity of the actual perpetrator.
"I never thought that this was even humanly possible," says Sabra. "To be honest, I
was probably naive."
When Aiden was 5 months old, the Bruckers discovered he had genetic intestinal malrotation—the same condition that had required emergency surgery to save his older sister Addison's life back when she too was 5 months old.
On August 9, 2021, the Bruckers took Aiden to the OSF Children's Hospital Emergency Room in Peoria, Illinois. He was experiencing intense stomach pain and vomiting, just as his older sister had. Genetic intestinal malrotation can be a life-threatening condition, and it requires immediate, emergency intervention.
Aiden's condition, though serious, was not as immediately life-threatening as Addison's had been. He was given ultrasounds and X-rays for his upper GI track, abdomen, and chest. His intestinal reversal was visualized, but no skeletal concerns were noted. Nevertheless, he was held in the hospital for observation, and subjected to daily, repeated abdominal ultrasounds and chest and abdominal X-rays.
On the fourth day of his stay at the hospital, seven rib fractures became visible on the X-rays. These were all new, non-calcified fractures that had not appeared on earlier X-rays. Rib fractures are viewed by medical profession as evidence of possible abuse.
The Bruckers immediately suspected that the fractures had occurred during the hospital stay itself, possibly due to the extensive handling and exams Aiden had endured. The lack of any signs of these injuries at admission certainly suggested that they had appeared during Aiden's inpatient care. And yet as soon as the fractures were detected, a child abuse hotline call was placed to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) naming the Bruckers as suspected abusers.
Sabra was in a meeting with her boss when she received the news.
"I immediately called my husband—he was at the hospital with Aiden—and I said, 'What is going on?'" Sabra recalls. "I just remember the sheer confusion and fear in his
voice."
Sabra and Dagan were not quick to point fingers, but they did wonder if the hospital was aware of its own potential liability when it accused them of causing the fractures.
Following the call to the child abuse hotline, a state-contracted child abuse pediatrician, Channing Petrak, assumed the role of directing Aiden's medical testing as a suspected child abuse victim. Petrak oversees child abuse cases under a subcontract her office holds with the DCFS for central Illinois. While not a hospital employee, she is viewed as the head of the hospital's child abuse team. In that capacity, she was empowered to decide which tests Aiden needed in order to confirm or rule out abuse.
She was also immediately enlisted to discuss the case with DCFS and the police and to determine whether child abuse had occurred. If she believed it had, her role would include testifying against the parents in the event the case went to court.
Petrak was responsible for testing not just Aiden but the other Brucker children as well. While parents have the right to refuse medical procedures that are not required by a court order or emergency, the fear of CPS retribution looms large.
On multiple occasions, Sabra requested a meeting with Petrak and the OSF team to ensure the timeline of the injuries was clear. She felt it necessary that everyone understand the fractures had not been present on Aiden's body upon admission, as shown by multiple X-ray examinations. Clarifying this, she thought, would allow her and Dagan to work alongside the hospital to identify their underlying cause.
Sabra even wrote on the whiteboard the team used for notes: "Can we clarify Xray finds with DCFS?" and snapped a photo of it.
"I wanted a picture with a time stamp because no one would speak to me," she says.
Sabra's requests were ignored.
Meanwhile, Petrak pushed the family to authorize an MRI, which would require Aiden to fast for eight hours and then undergo general anesthesia and be intubated. As there was no suspicion of other injuries that would have made an MRI useful, the Bruckers tried to object.
In response, the hospital threatened the family with a court order that would require Aiden to remain in the hospital's care pending a judicial order for the MRI. Since complying with the MRI demand seemed to be the only way to bring their son home quickly, Sabra comforted Aiden through the fast, and handed him over to the hospital's staff—who sedated and intubated him, and proceeded with the MRI.
The other Brucker children—ages four, two and now six months—were also subjected to observation at their home. These included visual exams of their genitals.
The state even demanded that the 4-year-old daughter, Addison, submit to a forensic interrogator. This investigator reported that Addison was very "sweet" and "polite," and no concerns were noted from her 2-hour interview.
Meanwhile, DCFS determined that the Bruckers could not take Aiden home by themselves upon his discharge. Instead, the agency demanded the family find someone else to take care of their four children. That person could do so at the Bruckers' home, and Sabra and Dagan could live there—but they would not be allowed to be alone with their children at any time. If they not did find a caregiver to watch the kids 24/7, the children would be taken into foster care and placed with strangers.
Sabra's parents, Don and Shari Boyd, lived 273 miles away. Thankfully, Shari was on hand to help out, even though she was in the middle of breast cancer treatment.
Diane Redleaf, a defense attorney who co-chairs the National Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care, says that the Bruckers' experience is commonplace. Efforts are underway to secure reforms that would allow families like the Bruckers to have some recourse when they are threatened with having their kids taken away.
This arrangement for the children was supposed to last for just two to five days, but DCFS kept extending it. The caseworker even reminded grandma Shari that she couldn't use the bathroom without taking the kids in with her. Sabra and Dagan's nighttime feedings of their baby twins also had to be supervised by Shari.
The Bruckers wanted to object, but they felt they had no choice.
This led to odd situations, such as Dagan not being able to have his kids take turns riding the combine with him—their favorite fall activity. The combine had only two seats, so if one of the children rode along, Shari and the other three children would have to somehow ride along too, or the government's plan would be violated.
As the weeks dragged on, the Bruckers worked to demonstrate that the abuse allegations against them were false. A University of Chicago pediatric orthopedic specialist, Christopher Sullivan, saw Aiden in his office and reviewed his radiology imaging and lab testing, formally concluding that the timing of the fractures' first appearance made it impossible for them to have occurred prior to the hospital admission.
Sullivan also noticed that Aiden had very low Vitamin D and high parathyroid hormone levels, which made his bones extremely fragile. He concluded that the likeliest explanation for the fractures was routine handling at the hospital.
Despite this report—and many letters from the Bruckers' pediatrician, family members, friends, and teachers—DCFS's restrictions persisted.
Meanwhile, DCFS came to suspect that the Bruckers' day care providers were Aiden's possible abuse perpetrators. For that reason, DCFS told the Bruckers they could no longer send their kids there. Everyone who had ever been in contact with Aiden before his hospital stay had suddenly become a suspect.
Sabra requested that their two older children be allowed to keep going to their day care— with their familiar friends and routines—but the caseworker said no. The caseworker also continued to demand weekly check-ins with the Bruckers. Each time, she insisted on strip-searching the twins and commenting on natural bodily features, such as inverted nipples.
As the family languished, Sabra checked the mail one day and was shocked to find a bill from the hospital for over $60,000. Her private insurance provider had denied the payment for Aiden's MRI as "medically unnecessary." The Bruckers told the hospital's billing department that they had not requested the MRI; it was done at the behest of Petrak. Soon after this, the Bruckers' billing records disappeared from their file at the hospital.
Illinois gives DCFS 60 days to complete an investigation. Knowing this, the Brucker family decided on day 60 that they had had enough of the "voluntary safety plan." They hired a lawyer with DCFS experience who confirmed their right to terminate the plan. He notified DCFS accordingly.
Three months later, in January 2022, a caseworker from a different DCFS regional office phoned Sabra to say their investigation file had been transferred. Since the children had not been seen by DCFS in several months, the new caseworker wanted to come observe them. The family declined this request. The new DCFS caseworker also informed Sabra that the Bruckers' case file was completely empty of investigative notes.
In March, and again in October, 14 months after the case had begun, the Bruckers' attorney submitted a complaint to the DCFS Inspector General. In November 2022, he received a response saying the inspector general was unable to investigate this complaint because the case was still open. The Bruckers couldn't help but wonder whether DCFS was keep the status of the investigation ambiguous in order to avoid accountability.
Finally, in November 2023, the Bruckers received a letter from DCFS stating that the case was now closed and Dagan and Sabra were cleared of any wrongdoing. Curiously, the letter claimed that "someone" had been "substantiated" as Aiden's abuser.
The Bruckers filed an inquiry as to who that person was. They were told they had no right to see these records.
Neither Petrak nor the hospital responded to a request for comment. A spokesperson for DCFS declared in a statement: "DCFS is mandated by Illinois statute to investigate any allegations of child abuse or neglect that is reported to our agency."
In situations like the Bruckers', which are far too numerous to be viewed as aberrations, concerns about children's health and well-being are cited as pretexts to legitimize witch hunts against parents and other caregivers. These investigations have lasting consequences. The Brucker children were left with extreme separation anxiety. Sabra experienced debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder. The family considered suing the caseworkers but decided that litigation would force them to relive the horror.
But they did decide to speak out about their harrowing experience. They want people to understand that the state's so-called voluntary safety plan did was neither voluntary nor safe—it was a sham.
Thankfully, Aiden's medical condition has resolved, and he's now in excellent physical shape.
"He's growing, cute, talking, very healthy now," says Sabra.
Meanwhile, Petrak recently became president of the board of directors of the National Children's Alliance. The organization oversees funding and accrediting for child advocacy centers, where allegedly abused children are interviewed and assessed across the country.
The post Illinois Falsely Accused These Parents of Abusing Their Baby—and Now Won't Tell Them Who Actually Did It appeared first on Reason.com.
Teaching the internet to children from an early age has become a norm. Using the internet has become so intrinsic to children’s lives that parents must be responsible for choosing the right content for their kids. Luckily, there are many fun and educational games children can play and learn. The rising popularity of portable games, ... Read more
The post Recommendations for Young Gamers: 9 Fun Online Games for Kids to Play appeared first on Gamer For Fun.
Our Coolest Projects 2024 online showcase has come to a close, with 7197 young people from 43 countries sharing the incredible things they have made with code. A huge congratulations to everyone who took part!
Coolest Projects is our annual global celebration of young digital creators and the cool things they make with technology. This year’s showcase featured 4678 amazing projects, from a doughnut clicker game created in Scratch to an app that tracks sunscreen usage and areas with high UV levels for users.
This week, we celebrated each and every young creator and their incredible tech projects in a special livestream:
Every year, we invite some very special VIP judges to choose their favourite projects to highlight. Meet our 2024 judges and find out about the projects they picked.
Azra is the co-founder of MakerGhat, an education nonprofit based in India that aims to nurture underserved youth to become the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders. MakerGhat has reached around a million youth to date through hands-on making programmes. She is also an Assistant Professor at Emory University, where she directs the CARE Lab (Collective Action & Research for Equity). Azra was named in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list, and has previously worked with Google, the Wadhwani Institute for AI, and United Nations Global Pulse. She has a PhD in Human-Centered Computing and Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech.
See Azra’s favourite projects:
Greg is an award-winning Science Presenter and Producer who has written and hosted a bunch of stuff on TV, YouTube, radio, and stage over the past 20 years. Greg has a BBC Radio 4 show called Sliced Bread that investigates whether wonder products like face creams and air fryers are indeed ‘the best thing since sliced bread’, or marketing hype. Greg regularly pops up on TV — he’s a regular on the BBC’s Morning Live and was the in-house science guy on Blue Peter and Sunday Brunch for many years. He’s also hosted multiple TV series, made live shows for families on YouTube (Let’s Go Live), and toured science theatre shows around the UK.
Take a look at Greg’s favourite projects:
Natalie is the Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation, a global nonprofit that has empowered over 20 million inventors of all ages to create over 100 million apps to improve their lives and uplift their communities. She received her PhD in ML and AI education from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, and currently serves as Expert on Mission at UNESCO to develop the UN’s AI Competency Framework for K-12 Students.
See which projects Natalie chose as her favourites:
Selin is a 17-year-old multi-award winner and changemaker who has been passionate about using tech for good since an early age. She taught herself to code at age 8 and started building robots at 10, and participated in Coolest Projects for many years. She has built seven robots to date, including the social good robot iC4U, a robot guide dog for visually impaired people, and BB4All, an anti-bullying school aid robot. She has also built a stray dog wellbeing app, JAVA, and an AI model for breast cancer diagnosis. Her aim is to inspire young people, especially girls, to see the fun and importance of using tech for good.
Selin’s favourite projects are:
We partnered with Broadcom Foundation to give a special award to young creators using coding and computing to solve real-world problems that matter to their communities. Broadcom Coding with Commitment® is a special recognition for a Coolest Projects creator aged 11–14 who has used computing as an essential problem-solving tool to help those around them.
This year’s Broadcom Coding with Commitment® recipients are Naitik, Shravasti, and Nikita from India in recognition of their project Drainage alert system. Their thoughtful project uses a water flow sensor connected to a Raspberry Pi computer to detect when waste enters the drainage system and causes blockages and send an alert to the local council.
Now you’ve seen the judges’ favourite projects, it’s time to pick your own! Take a look at the Coolest Projects 2024 online showcase gallery to see all the amazing projects from young people all over the world, and get inspired to make your own.
Participants will shortly receive their own unique certificates and the personalised feedback on their projects from our team of judges, to celebrate their achievements.
Support from our Coolest Projects sponsors means we can make the online showcase and celebration livestream an inspiring experience for the young people taking part. We want to say a big thank you to all of them: Amazon Future Engineer, Broadcom Foundation, GoTo, Kingston Technology, Meta, and Qube Research & Technologies.
The post Coolest Projects 2024: 7197 young tech creators showcase their projects online appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
A study just published in the prestigious Journal of Anxiety Disorders describes a "novel treatment" for clinically anxious kids: letting them do new things, on their own, without their parents.
In other words, letting them be Free-Range Kids.
The pilot study, by Long Island University psychology professor Camilo Ortiz and his doctoral student Matthew Fastman, focused on four kids. In his everyday practice, Ortiz would often use cognitive behavioral therapy to treat kids with anxiety. This involves exposing patients to the very thing that scares them so that they can overcome it. For instance, a person deathly afraid of dogs might be shown a picture of a dog, then stand in the same room as a dog, and finally have to pet the dog.
Independence therapy works differently.
"We didn't actually have the kids face the things they're afraid of," says Ortiz.
The patients included:
The independence therapy involved each family separately visiting Ortiz five times, in his office or on Zoom. At the first session, only the parents came. Ortiz discussed the value of independence and even showed them this video of me, which, Ortiz said, "has been unbelievably effective. Many parents cry."(Ortiz told me he has been aware of Free-Range Kids since I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone and has subsequently followed the work of Let Grow.)
At that visit, Ortiz asked the parents about their biggest concern. One couple said their daughter was too scared to sleep in her own bed. Another said their son wouldn't go up or downstairs in their home without them.
On the next visit, the child accompanied the parents. But without mentioning the big fear, Ortiz talked up independence and asked the kids what they'd like to start doing on their own. Despite their anxiety, they wanted to walk home from school, play chess in the park, take public transportation, and many other things. "OK," Ortiz told each child, "your assignment is to do one 'independence activity' a day for the next four weeks." The parents' assignment was to let them.
And yet, Ortiz confides, "The whole time I was rooting for things to go wrong." It's when a person goes from "I can't handle this!" to "Whoa—I handled it!" that the biggest growth occurs, he says.
For one of her independence activities, the girl afraid to sleep in her own bed took a city bus—and missed her stop. She was so upset that she actually talked to a stranger: the person next to her. That person told her to get off and walk two blocks back. She accomplished this, and the results were incredible.
"During the last week of treatment, unprompted," Ortiz wrote in the study, the girl "slept in her bed after never having made it through a night previously." And then she kept doing it.
Similarly, while out on an independent walk, the boy terrified about his health "really had to pee," Ortiz says. He relieved himself on the side of a building. Later, when Ortiz and the boy discussed this during a session, "we had a good laugh, but he actually learned something: Life can be messy, and it's OK."
Being psychologically flexible is one of the most important factors for predicting a good life.
In the end, the kids' anxieties markedly decreased. That was true even for the one patient who didn't finish the treatment. After two sessions, she was already "over the hump," said her parents, who reported that "she requested to stay home alone for four hours, went into a restaurant to ask for a table, babysat three kids, and organized an online art auction."
In psychological terms, it seems the kids' confidence spread from the new things they were doing to the things they'd been too scared to do. This mirrors a recent study of people afraid of both heights and spiders. Treated for one, they became less afraid of the other.
If further studies of independence therapy show this kind of success—Ortiz is seeking funding—it could prove a valuable alternative to cognitive behavioral therapy for three reasons. One, it seems to require fewer sessions, which makes it cheaper. Two, it doesn't require much training and could be done in schools. Three, it doesn't require the parents, kids, or therapists themselves to deal with the unpleasant, triggering fear.
"This is a pretty big finding—that you don't have to actually treat directly the thing someone is afraid of to make that thing better," says Ortiz.
The post 'Independence Therapy' Could Revolutionize Treatment for Child Anxiety appeared first on Reason.com.
A mom recently went to her daughter's Maryland elementary school to ask why the kids aren't allowed to play tag at recess—or even to close their eyes.
"We'd recently transferred from another district and my daughter was taken aback by how many rules there were," said the mom, whose name is being kept private to protect her identity.
There are indeed a lot of rules at the girl's new school—four typed pages of them. The mom found this out after the school administrator handed her a copy of the "Montgomery County Public Schools Playground Supervision Recess Procedures for Playground Aides." It states, among other things:
- Baseball and football games are not permitted at any time.
- Haphazard running, chasing and tag games on the blacktop are not permitted.
- A student may not begin to swing on rings and bars until the student ahead of him/her has finished.
Once they do swing or climb, they must use an "opposed thumb grip." (As opposed to their teeth?)
The rules also instruct playground aides to "caution children if it appears that emotions and excitement are mounting to a point where incorrect actions may soon result."
After the mom sent me the rules, I contacted the Montgomery County office in charge of recess safety. They did not respond.
"It really feels as though maybe we've lost touch with what's developmentally appropriate," the mom told me.
An administrator who met with the mom explained that the school's primary job is to keep children safe at all times. The mom disagrees; a school's primary job is to teach children and avoid interfering with their development.
Boston College Psychology Professor Peter Gray feels similarly.
"These rules demonstrate no trust at all of the children, nor even of the playground supervisors," says Gray, a co-founder of my non-profit, Let Grow. "When we treat people as irresponsible, they become irresponsible."
The mom said she felt a bit sorry for the administrator, who had no say in these rules. (Just like the kids.) And she added that today's children really do seem a little rough when they play tag—probably because they've had so little practice at it.
I have heard this from other people who work with children, especially occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, who notes that when kids don't move enough, they fail to develop proprioception, the ability to know where their body is in space and how much force it needs to do something physical.
All the more reason to let kids start adjusting to each other in the easiest, most natural way possible: through play.
In his new book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt recommends bringing more play into kids' lives by keeping Friday afternoons free so kids can play in the neighborhood. He also recommends that schools stay open before or after school for mixed-age free play in a no-phone zone: what we call a "Let Grow Play Club." (Haidt is another co-founder of Let Grow. Our Play Club materials are here, for free.)
Depriving kids of play in the name of safety is dangerous. Even more dangerous than two kids using the climbing rings at once.
The post Elementary Schools Ban Tag, Football, and Fun During Recess appeared first on Reason.com.
"Wow!!!!" "Congrats!" "Next step: New York Times crossword puzzle!"
I began receiving such texts on Friday, after achieving the modern-day equivalent of immortality: I became a clue on Jeopardy!.
The category was "Points of View," and the clue was this: "Lenore Skenazy, who wrote of letting her 9-year-old right the NYC subway alone, moved this term from raising chickens to raising kids."
If you can't guess the answer, there's a clue at the top of this article.
So, how does one become a Jeopardy! clue? It's easy: Just let your kid do something the world considers dangerous, then write a column about why the world is wrong. Then write some more columns about it, appear on every possible talk show in defense of yourself, and then graciously accept the nickname "America's Worst Mom."
Then, start a blog about the issue and give it a catchy name, manage to trademark said name (shout out to Dale Cendali, America's top intellectual property lawyer and my dear friend from college), and write a book with the same title. Next, you have to speak at about a million schools, as well as corporate behemoths like Microsoft and DreamWorks. Perhaps most importantly, write to Matt Welch at Reason, out of the blue, and propose yourself as a columnist.
In fact, I recently rediscovered that first letter to Reason, which began:
Hi Matt!
Looking over all the topics on the Reason blog—ever fascinating—I see one that's not covered much: Parenting. And yet looking at parenting is how I found you and the whole Libertarian movement.
I was angry to learn about parents who'd been arrested for letting their kids wait in the car, or walk to the pizza parlor, or play in the park. I couldn't believe some daycare workers had to check in on sleeping babies every 15 minutes to record their sleep positions. I heard from teachers who had to fill out hazardous materials reports for each different brand of baby wipe and dish soap in their classrooms. And I still don't understand the drop-side crib recall — or so many of the CPSC's crusades (like this one against a sandal with a flower on it). And of course I hear about pretty much every Zero Tolerance travesty in this country, often days before the mainstream media gloms on. And that's not to mention all the so-called "safety precautions" set in motion after Sandy Hook, or the insane and arcane background checks now required of school volunteers. (I wrote about those in Monday's Wall Street Journal.)
So if you want to be on Jeopardy!—Jeopardy! Masters, actually—and have the contestant answer the clue correctly, just dedicate about 16 years to one specific topic and all its strange and infuriating ramifications, become the world's leading expert on the topic, and write for Reason!
The post How Free-Range Kids Became an Answer on <em>Jeopardy!</em> appeared first on Reason.com.
Mobile phones are currently banned in all Australian state schools and many Catholic and independent schools around the country. This is part of a global trend over more than a decade to restrict phone use in schools.
Australian governments say banning mobile phones will reduce distractions in class, allow students to focus on learning, improve student wellbeing and reduce cyberbullying.
But previous research has shown there is little evidence on whether the bans actually achieve these aims.
Many places that restricted phones in schools before Australia did have now reversed their decisions. For example, several school districts in Canada implemented outright bans then revoked them as they were too hard to maintain. They now allow teachers to make decisions that suit their own classrooms.
A ban was similarly revoked in New York City, partly because bans made it harder for parents to stay in contact with their children.
What does recent research say about phone bans in schools?
We conducted a “scoping review” of all published and unpublished global evidence for and against banning mobile phones in schools.
Our review, which is pending publication, aims to shed light on whether mobile phones in schools impact academic achievement (including paying attention and distraction), students’ mental health and wellbeing, and the incidence of cyberbullying.
A scoping review is done when researchers know there aren’t many studies on a particular topic. This means researchers cast a very inclusive net, to gather as much evidence as possible.
Our team screened 1,317 articles and reports as well as dissertations from masters and PhD students. We identified 22 studies that examined schools before and after phone bans. There was a mix of study types. Some looked at multiple schools and jurisdictions, some looked at a small number of schools, some collected quantitative data, others sought qualitative views.
In a sign of just how little research there is on this topic, 12 of the studies we identified were done by masters and doctoral students. This means they are not peer-reviewed but done by research students under supervision by an academic in the field.
But in a sign of how fresh this evidence is, almost half the studies we identified were published or completed since 2020.
The studies looked at schools in Bermuda, China, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. None of them looked at schools in Australia.
Our research found four studies that identified a slight improvement in academic achievement when phones were banned in schools. However, two of these studies found this improvement only applied to disadvantaged or low-achieving students.
Some studies compared schools where there were partial bans against schools with complete bans. This is a problem because it confuses the issue.
But three studies found no differences in academic achievement, whether there were mobile phone bans or not. Two of these studies used very large samples. This masters thesis looked at 30% of all schools in Norway. Another study used a nationwide cohort in Sweden. This means we can be reasonably confident in these results.
Two studies in our review, including this doctoral thesis, reported mobile phone bans had positive effects on students’ mental health. However, both studies used teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of students’ wellbeing (the students were not asked themselves).
Two other studies showed no differences in psychological wellbeing following mobile phone bans. However, three studies reported more harm to students’ mental health and wellbeing when they were subjected to phone bans.
The students reported they felt more anxious without being able to use their phone. This was especially evident in one doctoral thesis carried out when students were returning to school after the pandemic, having been very reliant on their devices during lockdown.
So the evidence for banning mobile phones for the mental health and wellbeing of student is inconclusive and based only on anecdotes or perceptions, rather than the recorded incidence of mental illness.
Four studies reported a small reduction in bullying in schools following phone bans, especially among older students. However, the studies did not specify whether or not they were talking about cyberbullying.
Teachers in two other studies, including this doctoral thesis, reported they believed having mobile phones in schools increased cyberbullying.
But two other studies showed the number of incidents of online victimisation and harassment was greater in schools with mobile phone bans compared with those without bans. The study didn’t collect data on whether the online harassment was happening inside or outside school hours.
The authors suggested this might be because students saw the phone bans as punitive, which made the school climate less egalitarian and less positive. Other research has linked a positive school climate with fewer incidents of bullying.
There is no research evidence that students do or don’t use other devices to bully each other if there are phone bans. But it is of course possible for students to use laptops, tablets, smartwatches or library computers to conduct cyberbullying.
Even if phone bans were effective, they would not address the bulk of school bullying. A 2019 Australian study found 99% of students who were cyberbullied were also bullied face-to-face.
Overall, our study suggests the evidence for banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive.
As Australian education academic Neil Selwyn argued in 2021, the impetus for mobile phone bans says more about MPs responding to community concerns rather than research evidence.
Politicians should leave this decision to individual schools, which have direct experience of the pros or cons of a ban in their particular community. For example, a community in remote Queensland could have different needs and priorities from a school in central Brisbane.
Mobile phones are an integral part of our lives. We need to be teaching children about appropriate use of phones, rather than simply banning them. This will help students learn how to use their phones safely and responsibly at school, at home and beyond.
Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology and Elizabeth J Edwards, Associate Professor in Education, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Mobile phones are currently banned in all Australian state schools and many Catholic and independent schools around the country. This is part of a global trend over more than a decade to restrict phone use in schools.
Australian governments say banning mobile phones will reduce distractions in class, allow students to focus on learning, improve student wellbeing and reduce cyberbullying.
But previous research has shown there is little evidence on whether the bans actually achieve these aims.
Many places that restricted phones in schools before Australia did have now reversed their decisions. For example, several school districts in Canada implemented outright bans then revoked them as they were too hard to maintain. They now allow teachers to make decisions that suit their own classrooms.
A ban was similarly revoked in New York City, partly because bans made it harder for parents to stay in contact with their children.
What does recent research say about phone bans in schools?
We conducted a “scoping review” of all published and unpublished global evidence for and against banning mobile phones in schools.
Our review, which is pending publication, aims to shed light on whether mobile phones in schools impact academic achievement (including paying attention and distraction), students’ mental health and wellbeing, and the incidence of cyberbullying.
A scoping review is done when researchers know there aren’t many studies on a particular topic. This means researchers cast a very inclusive net, to gather as much evidence as possible.
Our team screened 1,317 articles and reports as well as dissertations from masters and PhD students. We identified 22 studies that examined schools before and after phone bans. There was a mix of study types. Some looked at multiple schools and jurisdictions, some looked at a small number of schools, some collected quantitative data, others sought qualitative views.
In a sign of just how little research there is on this topic, 12 of the studies we identified were done by masters and doctoral students. This means they are not peer-reviewed but done by research students under supervision by an academic in the field.
But in a sign of how fresh this evidence is, almost half the studies we identified were published or completed since 2020.
The studies looked at schools in Bermuda, China, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. None of them looked at schools in Australia.
Our research found four studies that identified a slight improvement in academic achievement when phones were banned in schools. However, two of these studies found this improvement only applied to disadvantaged or low-achieving students.
Some studies compared schools where there were partial bans against schools with complete bans. This is a problem because it confuses the issue.
But three studies found no differences in academic achievement, whether there were mobile phone bans or not. Two of these studies used very large samples. This masters thesis looked at 30% of all schools in Norway. Another study used a nationwide cohort in Sweden. This means we can be reasonably confident in these results.
Two studies in our review, including this doctoral thesis, reported mobile phone bans had positive effects on students’ mental health. However, both studies used teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of students’ wellbeing (the students were not asked themselves).
Two other studies showed no differences in psychological wellbeing following mobile phone bans. However, three studies reported more harm to students’ mental health and wellbeing when they were subjected to phone bans.
The students reported they felt more anxious without being able to use their phone. This was especially evident in one doctoral thesis carried out when students were returning to school after the pandemic, having been very reliant on their devices during lockdown.
So the evidence for banning mobile phones for the mental health and wellbeing of student is inconclusive and based only on anecdotes or perceptions, rather than the recorded incidence of mental illness.
Four studies reported a small reduction in bullying in schools following phone bans, especially among older students. However, the studies did not specify whether or not they were talking about cyberbullying.
Teachers in two other studies, including this doctoral thesis, reported they believed having mobile phones in schools increased cyberbullying.
But two other studies showed the number of incidents of online victimisation and harassment was greater in schools with mobile phone bans compared with those without bans. The study didn’t collect data on whether the online harassment was happening inside or outside school hours.
The authors suggested this might be because students saw the phone bans as punitive, which made the school climate less egalitarian and less positive. Other research has linked a positive school climate with fewer incidents of bullying.
There is no research evidence that students do or don’t use other devices to bully each other if there are phone bans. But it is of course possible for students to use laptops, tablets, smartwatches or library computers to conduct cyberbullying.
Even if phone bans were effective, they would not address the bulk of school bullying. A 2019 Australian study found 99% of students who were cyberbullied were also bullied face-to-face.
Overall, our study suggests the evidence for banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive.
As Australian education academic Neil Selwyn argued in 2021, the impetus for mobile phone bans says more about MPs responding to community concerns rather than research evidence.
Politicians should leave this decision to individual schools, which have direct experience of the pros or cons of a ban in their particular community. For example, a community in remote Queensland could have different needs and priorities from a school in central Brisbane.
Mobile phones are an integral part of our lives. We need to be teaching children about appropriate use of phones, rather than simply banning them. This will help students learn how to use their phones safely and responsibly at school, at home and beyond.
Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology and Elizabeth J Edwards, Associate Professor in Education, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Mobile phones are currently banned in all Australian state schools and many Catholic and independent schools around the country. This is part of a global trend over more than a decade to restrict phone use in schools.
Australian governments say banning mobile phones will reduce distractions in class, allow students to focus on learning, improve student wellbeing and reduce cyberbullying.
But previous research has shown there is little evidence on whether the bans actually achieve these aims.
Many places that restricted phones in schools before Australia did have now reversed their decisions. For example, several school districts in Canada implemented outright bans then revoked them as they were too hard to maintain. They now allow teachers to make decisions that suit their own classrooms.
A ban was similarly revoked in New York City, partly because bans made it harder for parents to stay in contact with their children.
What does recent research say about phone bans in schools?
We conducted a “scoping review” of all published and unpublished global evidence for and against banning mobile phones in schools.
Our review, which is pending publication, aims to shed light on whether mobile phones in schools impact academic achievement (including paying attention and distraction), students’ mental health and wellbeing, and the incidence of cyberbullying.
A scoping review is done when researchers know there aren’t many studies on a particular topic. This means researchers cast a very inclusive net, to gather as much evidence as possible.
Our team screened 1,317 articles and reports as well as dissertations from masters and PhD students. We identified 22 studies that examined schools before and after phone bans. There was a mix of study types. Some looked at multiple schools and jurisdictions, some looked at a small number of schools, some collected quantitative data, others sought qualitative views.
In a sign of just how little research there is on this topic, 12 of the studies we identified were done by masters and doctoral students. This means they are not peer-reviewed but done by research students under supervision by an academic in the field.
But in a sign of how fresh this evidence is, almost half the studies we identified were published or completed since 2020.
The studies looked at schools in Bermuda, China, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Malawi, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. None of them looked at schools in Australia.
Our research found four studies that identified a slight improvement in academic achievement when phones were banned in schools. However, two of these studies found this improvement only applied to disadvantaged or low-achieving students.
Some studies compared schools where there were partial bans against schools with complete bans. This is a problem because it confuses the issue.
But three studies found no differences in academic achievement, whether there were mobile phone bans or not. Two of these studies used very large samples. This masters thesis looked at 30% of all schools in Norway. Another study used a nationwide cohort in Sweden. This means we can be reasonably confident in these results.
Two studies in our review, including this doctoral thesis, reported mobile phone bans had positive effects on students’ mental health. However, both studies used teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of students’ wellbeing (the students were not asked themselves).
Two other studies showed no differences in psychological wellbeing following mobile phone bans. However, three studies reported more harm to students’ mental health and wellbeing when they were subjected to phone bans.
The students reported they felt more anxious without being able to use their phone. This was especially evident in one doctoral thesis carried out when students were returning to school after the pandemic, having been very reliant on their devices during lockdown.
So the evidence for banning mobile phones for the mental health and wellbeing of student is inconclusive and based only on anecdotes or perceptions, rather than the recorded incidence of mental illness.
Four studies reported a small reduction in bullying in schools following phone bans, especially among older students. However, the studies did not specify whether or not they were talking about cyberbullying.
Teachers in two other studies, including this doctoral thesis, reported they believed having mobile phones in schools increased cyberbullying.
But two other studies showed the number of incidents of online victimisation and harassment was greater in schools with mobile phone bans compared with those without bans. The study didn’t collect data on whether the online harassment was happening inside or outside school hours.
The authors suggested this might be because students saw the phone bans as punitive, which made the school climate less egalitarian and less positive. Other research has linked a positive school climate with fewer incidents of bullying.
There is no research evidence that students do or don’t use other devices to bully each other if there are phone bans. But it is of course possible for students to use laptops, tablets, smartwatches or library computers to conduct cyberbullying.
Even if phone bans were effective, they would not address the bulk of school bullying. A 2019 Australian study found 99% of students who were cyberbullied were also bullied face-to-face.
Overall, our study suggests the evidence for banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive.
As Australian education academic Neil Selwyn argued in 2021, the impetus for mobile phone bans says more about MPs responding to community concerns rather than research evidence.
Politicians should leave this decision to individual schools, which have direct experience of the pros or cons of a ban in their particular community. For example, a community in remote Queensland could have different needs and priorities from a school in central Brisbane.
Mobile phones are an integral part of our lives. We need to be teaching children about appropriate use of phones, rather than simply banning them. This will help students learn how to use their phones safely and responsibly at school, at home and beyond.
Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology and Elizabeth J Edwards, Associate Professor in Education, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Apparently, the world needs even more terrible bills that let ignorant senators grandstand to the media about how they’re “protecting the kids online.” There’s nothing more serious to work on than that. The latest bill comes from Senators Brian Schatz and Ted Cruz (with assists from Senators Chris Murphy, Katie Britt, Peter Welch, Ted Budd, John Fetterman, Angus King, and Mark Warner). This one is called the “The Kids Off Social Media Act” (KOSMA) and it’s an unconstitutional mess built on a long list of debunked and faulty premises.
It’s especially disappointing to see this from Schatz. A few years back, I know his staffers would regularly reach out to smart people on tech policy issues in trying to understand the potential pitfalls of the regulations he was pushing. Either he’s no longer doing this, or he is deliberately ignoring their expert advice. I don’t know which one would be worse.
The crux of the bill is pretty straightforward: it would be an outright ban on social media accounts for anyone under the age of 13. As many people will recognize, we kinda already have a “soft” version of that because of COPPA, which puts much stricter rules on sites directed at those under 13. Because most sites don’t want to deal with those stricter rules, they officially limit account creation to those over the age of 13.
In practice, this has been a giant mess. Years and years ago, Danah Boyd pointed this out, talking about how the “age 13” bit is a disaster for kids, parents, and educators. Her research showed that all this generally did was to have parents teach kids that “it’s okay to lie,” as parents wanted kids to use social media tools to communicate with grandparents. Making that “soft” ban a hard ban is going to create a much bigger mess and prevent all sorts of useful and important communications (which, yeah, is a 1st Amendment issue).
Schatz’s reasons put forth for the bill are just… wrong.
No age demographic is more affected by the ongoing mental health crisis in the United States than kids, especially young girls. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 57 percent of high school girls and 29 percent of high school boys felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, with 22 percent of all high school students—and nearly a third of high school girls—reporting they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the preceding year.
Gosh. What was happening in 2021 with kids that might have made them feel hopeless? Did Schatz and crew simply forget about the fact that most kids were under lockdown and physically isolated from friends for much of 2021? And that there were plenty of other stresses, including millions of people, including family members, dying? Noooooo. Must be social media!
Studies have shown a strong relationship between social media use and poor mental health, especially among children.
Note the careful word choice here: “strong relationship.” They won’t say a causal relationship because studies have not shown that. Indeed, as the leading researcher in the space has noted, there continues to be no real evidence of any causal relationship. The relationship appears to work the other way: kids who are dealing with poor mental health and who are desperate for help turn to the internet and social media because they’re not getting help elsewhere.
Maybe offer a bill that helps kids get access to more resources that help them with their mental health, rather than taking away the one place they feel comfortable going? Maybe?
From 2019 to 2021, overall screen use among teens and tweens (ages 8 to 12) increased by 17 percent, with tweens using screens for five hours and 33 minutes per day and teens using screens for eight hours and 39 minutes.
I mean, come on Schatz. Are you trolling everyone? Again, look at those dates. WHY DO YOU THINK that screen time might have increased 17% for kids from 2019 to 2021? COULD IT POSSIBLY BE that most kids had to do school via computers and devices at home, because there was a deadly pandemic making the rounds?
Maybe?
Did Schatz forget that? I recognize that lots of folks would like to forget the pandemic lockdowns, but this seems like a weird way to manifest that.
I mean, what a weird choice of dates to choose. I’m honestly kind of shocked that the increase was only 17%.
Also, note that the data presented here isn’t about an increase in social media use. It could very well be that the 17% increase was Zoom classes.
Based on the clear and growing evidence, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory last year, calling for new policies to set and enforce age minimums and highlighting the importance of limiting the use of features, like algorithms, that attempt to maximize time, attention, and engagement.
Wait. You mean the same Surgeon General’s report that denied any causal link between social media and mental health (which you falsely claim has been proved) and noted just how useful and important social media is to many young people?
From that report, which Schatz misrepresents:
Social media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression. The ability to form and maintain friendships online and develop social connections are among the positive effects of social media use for youth. , These relationships can afford opportunities to have positive interactions with more diverse peer groups than are available to them offline and can provide important social support to youth. The buffering effects against stress that online social support from peers may provide can be especially important for youth who are often marginalized, including racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities. , For example, studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support. Seven out of ten adolescent girls of color report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race across social media platforms. A majority of adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%). In addition, research suggests that social media-based and other digitally-based mental health interventions may also be helpful for some children and adolescents by promoting help-seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental health care.
Did Schatz’s staffers just, you know, skip over that part of the report or nah?
The bill also says that companies need to not allow algorithmic targeting of content to anyone under 17. This is also based on a widely believed myth that algorithmic content is somehow problematic. No studies have legitimately shown that of current algorithms. Indeed, a recent study showed that removing algorithmic targeting leads to people being exposed to more disinformation.
Is this bill designed to force more disinformation on kids? Why would that be a good idea?
Yes, some algorithms can be problematic! About a decade ago, algorithms that tried to optimize solely for “engagement” definitely created some bad outcomes. But it’s been a decade since most such algorithms have been designed that way. On most social media platforms, the algorithms are designed in other ways, taking into account a variety of different factors, because they know that optimizing just on engagement leads to bad outcomes.
Then the bill tacks on Cruz’s bill to require schools to block social media. There’s an amusing bit when reading the text of that part of the law. It says that you have to block social media on “federally funded networks and devices” but also notes that it does not prohibit “a teacher from using a social media platform in the classroom for educational purposes.”
But… how are they going to access those if the school is required by law to block access to such sites? Most schools are going to do a blanket ban, and teachers are going to be left to do what? Show kids useful YouTube science videos on their phones? Or maybe some schools will implement a special teacher code that lets them bypass the block. And by the end of the first week of school half the kids in the school will likely know that password.
What are we even doing here?
Schatz has a separate page hyping up the bill, and it’s even dumber than the first one above. It repeats some of the points above, though this time linking to Jonathan Haidt, whose work has been trashed left, right, and center by actual experts in this field. And then it gets even dumber:
Big Tech knows it’s complicit – but refuses to do anything about it…. Moreover, the platforms know about their central role in turbocharging the youth mental health crisis. According to Meta’s own internal study, “thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” It concluded, “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.”
This is not just misleading, it’s practically fraudulent misrepresentation. The study Schatz is citing is one that was revealed by Frances Haugen. As we’ve discussed, it was done because Meta was trying to understand how to do better. Indeed, the whole point of that study was to see how teens felt about using social media in 12 different categories. Meta found that most boys felt neutral or better about themselves in all 12 categories. For girls, it was 11 out of 12. It was only in one category, body image, where the split was more pronounced. 32% of girls said that it made them feel worse. Basically the same percentage said it had no impact, or that it made them feel better.
Also, look at that slide’s title. The whole point of this study was to figure out if they were making kids feel worse in order to look into how to stop doing that. And now, because grandstanders like Schatz are falsely claiming that this proves they were “complicit” and “refuse to do anything about it,” no social media company will ever do this kind of research again.
Because, rather than proactively looking to see if they’re creating any problems that they need to try to fix, Schatz and crew are saying “simply researching this is proof that you’re complicit and refuse to act.”
Statements like this basically ensure that social media companies stick their heads in the sand, rather than try to figure out where harm might be caused and take steps to stop that harm.
Why would Schatz want to do that?
That page then also falsely claims that the bill does not require age verification. This is a silly two-step that lying politicians claim every time they do this. Does it directly mandate age verification? No. But, by making the penalties super serious and costly for failing to stop kids from accessing social media that will obviously drive companies to introduce stronger age verification measures that are inherently dangerous and an attack on privacy.
Perhaps Schatz doesn’t understand this, but it’s been widely discussed by many of the experts his staff used to talk to. So, really, he has no excuse.
The FAQ also claims that the bill will pass constitutional muster, while at the same time admitting that they know there will be lawsuits challenging it:
Yes. As, for example, First Amendment expert Neil Richards explains, “[i]nstead of censoring the protected expression present on these platforms, the act takes aim at the procedures and permissions that determine the time, place and manner of speech for underage consumers.” The Supreme Court has long held that the government has the right to regulate products to protect children, including by, for instance, restricting the sale of obscene content to minors. As Richards explains: “[i]n the same way a crowded bar or nightclub is no place for a child on their own”—or in the way every state in the country requires parental consent if it allows a minor to get a tattoo—“this rule would set a reasonable minimum age and maturity limitation for social media customers.”
While we expect legal challenges to any bill aimed at regulating social media companies, we are confident that this content-neutral bill will pass constitutional muster given the government interests at play.
There are many reasons why this is garbage under the law, but rather than breaking them all down (we’ll wait for judges to explain it in detail), I’ll just point out the major tell is in the law itself. In the definition of what a “social media platform” is in the law, there is a long list of exceptions of what the law does not cover. It includes a few “moral panics of yesteryear” that gullible politicians tried to ban and were found to have violated the First Amendment in the process.
It explicitly carves out video games and content that is professionally produced, rather than user-generated:
Remember the moral panics about video games and TV destroying kids’ minds? Yeah. So this child protection bill is hasty to say “but we’re not banning that kind of content!” Because whoever drafted the bill recognized that the Supreme Court has already made it clear that politicians can’t do that for video games or TV.
So, instead, they have to pretend that social media content is somehow on a whole different level.
But it’s not. It’s still the government restricting access to content. They’re going to pretend that there’s something unique and different about social media, and that they’re not banning the “content” but rather the “place” and “manner” of accessing that content. Except that’s laughable on its face.
You can see that in the quote above where Schatz does the fun dance where he first says “it’s okay to ban obscene content to minors” and then pretends that’s the same as restrictions on access to a bar (it’s not). One is about the content, and one is about a physical place. Social media is all about the content, and it’s not obscene content (which is already an exception to the First Amendment).
And, the “parental consent” for tattoos… I mean, what the fuck? Literally 4 questions above in the FAQ where that appears Schatz insists that his bill has nothing about parental consent. And then he tries to defend it by claiming it’s no different than parental consent laws?
The FAQ also claims this:
This bill does not prevent LGBTQ+ youth from accessing relevant resources online and we have worked closely with LGBTQ+ groups while crafting this legislation to ensure that this bill will not negatively impact that community.
I mean, it’s good you talked to some experts, but I note that most of the LGBTQ+ groups I’m aware of are not listed on your list of “groups supporting the bill” on the very same page. That absence stands out.
And, again, the Surgeon General’s report that you misleadingly cited elsewhere highlights how helpful social media can be to many LGBTQ+ youth. You can’t just say “nah, it won’t harm them” without explaining why all those benefits that have been shown in multiple studies, including the Surgeon General’s report, somehow don’t get impacted.
There’s a lot more, but this is just a terrible bill that would create a mess. And, I’m already hearing from folks in DC that Schatz is trying to get this bill added to the latest Christmas tree of a bill to reauthorize the FAA.
It would be nice if we had politicians looking to deal with the actual challenges facing kids these days, including the lack of mental health support for those who really need it. Instead, we get unconstitutional grandstanding nonsense bills like this.
Everyone associated with this bill should feel ashamed.
Modern web design has turned websites from static and boring walls of information into ways of providing fun and engaging experiences to the user. Our new ‘More web’ project path shows young creators how to add interaction and animation to a webpage through JavaScript code.
As of 2024, JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world. And it’s easy to see why when you look at its versatility and how it can be used to create dynamic and interactive content on websites. JavaScript lets you handle events and manipulate HTML and CSS so that you can build everything from simple animations, to forms that can be checked for missing or nonsensical answers. If you’ve ever seen a webpage continuously load more content when you reach the end, that’s JavaScript.
The six new projects in the ‘More web’ path move learners beyond the basics of HTML and CSS encountered in our ‘Introduction to web’ path. Young people will explore what JavaScript makes possible in web development, with plenty of support along the way.
By the end of the ‘More web’ path, learners will have covered the following key programming concepts:
| HTML and CSS | JavaScript |
| Navbars, grid layouts, hero images and image sliders Form design and handling user input Accessibility and responsive design Sizing elements relative to the viewport or container Creating parallax scrolling effects using background-attachment Fixing the position of elements and using z-index to layer elements | Local and global variables, and constants Selection (if, else if, and else) Repetition (for loops) Using Console log Concatenation using template literals Event listeners Use of the intersection observer API to animate elements and lazy-load images Use of the localStorage object to retain user preferencesWriting and calling functions to take advantage of the Document Object Model (DOM) Use setTimeout() to create time delaysWork with Date() functions |
We’ve designed the path to be completed in six one-hour sessions, with one hour per project. However, learners can work at their own speed and the project instructions invite them to take additional time to upgrade their projects if they wish.
All six projects use our Code Editor, which has been tailored specifically to young people’s needs. This integrated development environment (IDE) helps make learning text-based programming simple, safe, and accessible. The projects include starter code, handy code snippets, and images to help young people build their websites.
The path follows our Digital Making Framework, with its deliberate format of six projects that become less structured as learners progress. The Explore projects at the start of the path are where the initial learning takes place. Learners then develop their new skills by putting them into practice in the Design and Invent projects, which encourage them to use their imagination and make projects that matter to them.
Learners use HTML and CSS to design a website that lets people discover a place they may never get a chance to visit — Antarctica. They discover how to create a navigation bar (or navbar), set accessible colours and fonts, and add a responsive grid layout to hold beautiful images and interesting facts about this fascinating continent.
In the second Explore project, young people build an interactive website where the user can design a superhero character. Learners use JavaScript to let the user change the text on their website, show and hide elements, and create a hero image slider. They also learn how to let the user set the colour theme for the site and keep their preferences, even if they reload the page.
Young people create an interactive story with animated text and characters that are triggered when the user scrolls. They will learn how to design for accessibility and improve browser performance by only loading images when they’re needed.
This is where learners can practise their skills and bring in their own interests to make a fan website, which lets a user make choices that change the webpage content.
The final Design project invites young people to build a personalised web app that lets users test what they know about a topic. Learners choose a topic for their quiz, create and animate their questions, and then show the user their final score. They could make a quiz about history, nature, world records, science, sports, fashion, TV, movies… or anything else they’re an expert in!
In this final project, young people bring everything they’ve learnt together and use their new coding powers and modern design skills to create an interactive website to share a part of their world with others. They could provide information about their culture, interests, hobbies or expertise, share fun facts, create quizzes, or write reviews. Learners consider what makes a website useful and informative, as well as fun and accessible.
Encourage your young learners to take their next steps in web design, learn JavaScript, and try out this new path of coding projects to create interactive websites that excite and engage users.
Young people can also enter one of their Design or Invent projects into the Web category of the yearly Coolest Projects showcase by taking a short video showing the project and the code used to make it. Their creation will become part of the Coolest Projects online gallery for people all over the world to see!
The post Get young people making interactive websites with JavaScript and our ‘More web’ path appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Young people taking part in the European Astro Pi Challenge are about to have their computer programs sent to the International Space Station (ISS). Astro Pi is run annually in collaboration by us and ESA Education, and offers two ways to get involved: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.
This year, over 25,000 young people from across Europe and eligible ESA Member States are getting their programs ‘uplinked’ to the Astro Pi computers aboard the ISS, where they will be running over the next few weeks.
Mission Zero is an exciting activity for kids with little or no experience with coding. We invite young people to create a Python program that displays an 8×8 pixel image or animation. This program then gets sent to the ISS, and each pixel art piece is displayed for 30 seconds on the LED matrix display of the Astro Pi computers on the ISS.
We picked the theme ‘fauna and flora’ as the inspiration for young people’s pixel art, as it proved so popular last year, and we weren’t disappointed: this year, 24,378 young people submitted 16,039 Mission Zero creations!
We’ve tested every program and are pleased to announce that 15,942 Mission Zero programs will be sent to run on the ISS from mid May.
Once again, we have been amazed at the wonderful images and animations that young people have created. Seeing all the images that have been submitted is one of the most enjoyable and inspiring things to do as we work on the Astro Pi Challenge. Here is a little selection of some of our favourites submitted this year:
For Mission Space Lab, we invite more experienced young coders to take on a scientific challenge: to calculate the speed that the ISS orbits Earth.
Teams are tasked with writing a program that uses the Astro Pis’ sensors and visible light camera to capture data for their calculations, and we have really enjoyed seeing the different approaches the teams have taken.
Some teams decided to calculate the distance between two points in photos of the Earth’s surface and combine this with how long it took for the ISS to pass over the points to find the speed. This particular method uses feature extraction and needs to account for ground sampling distance — how many square metres are represented in one pixel in an image of the ground taken from above — to get an accurate output.
We’ve also seen teams use data from the gyroscope to calculate the speed using the angle readings and photos to get their outputs. Yet other teams have derived the speed using equations of motion and sampling from the accelerometer.
All teams that took multiple samples from the Astro Pi sensors, or multiple images, had to decide how to output a final estimate for the speed of the ISS. Most teams opted to use the mean average. But a few teams chose to filter their samples to choose only the ‘best’ ones based on prior knowledge (Bayesian filtering), and some used a machine learning model and the Astro Pi’s machine learning dongle to select which images or data samples to use. Some teams even provided a certainty score along with their final estimate.
However the team choses to approach the challenge, before their program can run on the ISS, we need to make sure of a few things. For a start, we check that they’ve followed the challenge rules and meet the ISS security requirements. Next, we check that the program can run without errors on the Astro Pis as the astronauts on board the ISS can’t stop what they’re doing to fix any problems.
So, all programs submitted to us must pass a rigorous testing process before they can be sent into space. We run each program on several replica Astro Pis, then run all the programs sequentially, to ensure there’s no problems. If the program passes testing, it’s awarded ‘flight status’ and can be sent to run in space.
This year, 236 teams have been awarded flight status. These teams represent 889 young people from 22 countries in Europe and ESA member states. The average age of these young people is 15, and 27% of them are girls. The UK has the most teams achieving flight status (61), followed by the Czech Republic (23) and Romania (22). You can see how this compares to last year and explore other breakdowns of participant data in the annual Astro Pi impact report.
Our congratulations to all the Mission Space Lab teams who’ve been awarded flight status: it is a great achievement. All these teams will be invited to join a live online Q&A with an ESA astronaut in June. We can’t wait to see what questions you send us for the astronaut.
Normally, the Astro Pi programs run continuously from the end of April until the end of May. However, this year, there is an interesting event happening in the skies above us that means that programs will pause for a few days. The ISS will be moving its position on the ‘beta angle’ and pivoting its orientation to maximise the sunlight that it can capture with its solar panels.
The ISS normally takes 90 minutes to complete its orbit, 45 minutes of which is in sunlight, and 45 minutes in darkness. When it moves along the beta angle, it will be in continual sunlight, allowing it to capture lots of solar energy and recharge its batteries. While in its new orientation, the ISS is exposed to increased heat from the sun so the window shutters must be closed to help the astronauts stay cool. That means taking photos of the Earth’s surface won’t be possible for a few days.
Once all of the programs have run, we will send the Mission Space Lab teams the data collected during their experiments. All successful Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab teams and mentors will also receive personal certificates to recognise their mission completion.
Congratulations to all of this year’s Astro Pi Challenge participants, and especially to all successful teams.
The post Young people’s Astro Pi code is sent to the International Space Station appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
We love hearing from members of the community and sharing the stories of amazing young people, volunteers, and educators who are using their passion for technology to create positive change in the world around them.
In our latest story, we’re heading to Alkmaar, the Netherlands, to meet Arno and Timo, CoderDojo enthusiasts who have transitioned from club members to supportive mentors. Their journey at CoderDojo and their drive to give back and support the next generation of coders in their community has been an inspiration to those around them.
Arno and Timo have been friends since childhood, and embarked on their CoderDojo journey at the age of 12, eager to explore the world of coding. Under the guidance of mentors like Sanneke, Librarian and Chair of CoderDojo Netherlands, they not only honed their technical skills, but also learned about the value of collaboration, curiosity, and perseverance. As they grew older, they in turn were inspired to support young coders, and wanting to remain part of the CoderDojo community, they decided to become mentors to the next generation of club attendees.
Having been helping younger members of the club for years, the transition to official mentors and proud owners of the much-coveted mentor T-shirt was seamless.
Sanneke reflects on the impact young mentors like Timo and Arno have on the young learners at CoderDojo:
“Having young mentors who are just slightly older than our youngest… I think it helps them to see what happens when you grow up and how they can help. They can be examples for how to help others.” – Sanneke, Librarian, CoderDojo mentor, and Chair of CoderDojo Netherlands
Timo echoes this sentiment, highlighting how mentoring provides a fantastic opportunity to help people and make a positive impact in the local community:
“I think volunteering is important, because you’re doing something for the community, in a city or village, supporting them in their journey in learning coding.” – Timo
As they continue their journey, Timo and Arno remain committed to supporting and inspiring the next generation of coders. They also encourage anyone who is thinking of volunteering at a club to give it a go:
“If you want to volunteer at the CoderDojo, just go for it. You don’t really need that much experience. […] The kids can learn it, so can you.” – Arno
The CoderDojo movement in the Netherlands is celebrating a decade of impact, and champions a culture of growth and learning. Arno and Timo’s story serves as an inspiration to us all, shining a light on the power of mentorship and the impact of volunteering in building stronger, more supportive communities.
Arno and Timo’s story showcases the importance of mentorship for both individuals and communities, and the real impact you can have by donating an hour of your time a week. If you’re interested in becoming a CoderDojo volunteer, head to coderdojo.com to find out how to get started.
Help us celebrate Arno and Timo and their inspiring journey by sharing their story on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Big news for young coders and everyone who supports them: project registration is now open for Coolest Projects 2024! Coolest Projects is our global technology showcase for young people aged up to 18. It gives young creators the incredible opportunity to share the cool stuff they’ve made with digital technology with a global audience, and receive certificates and rewards to celebrate their achievements.
The Coolest Projects online showcase is open to young people worldwide. Young creators can register their projects to share them with the world in our online project gallery, and join our exciting livestream event to celebrate what they have made with the global Coolest Projects community.
By taking part in Coolest Projects, young people can join an international community of young makers, represent their country, receive personalised feedback on their projects, and get certificates and more to recognise their achievements.
Here’s how it works:
Taking part in Coolest Projects is simple:
As well as the global online showcase, Coolest Projects in-person events are held for young people locally in certain countries too, and we encourage creators to take part in both the online showcase and their local in-person event.
In 2024, creators can look forward to the following in-person events, run by us and partner organisations around the world:
More events are coming soon, so sign up to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be sure to hear about any in-person events in your country. And if there isn’t an event near you, don’t worry. The online showcase is open to any young person anywhere in the world.
Coolest Projects welcomes all digital tech projects, from beginner to advanced, and there are loads of great resources available to help you support the young people in your community to take part.
We are running a series of online calls and webinars for mentors and young people to share practical tips and help participants develop their ideas and build their creations. Sign up for the sessions here. All sessions will be recorded, so you can watch them back if you can’t join live.
You can also check out the Coolest Projects guidance page for resources to help you support young people throughout their Coolest Projects journey, including a mentor guide and session plans.
To inspire your coders, encourage them to take a look at the 2023 showcase gallery, where they can explore the incredible projects submitted by participants last year.
Our projects site is also a great place for participants to begin — there are hundreds of free step-by-step project guides to help young people create their own projects, whether they’re experienced tech creators or they’re just getting started.
There’s lots more exciting news to come, from the announcement of our VIP judges to details about this year’s swag, so sign up for email updates to be the first to know. And whether your coders have already made something fun, innovative, or amazing that they want to share, or they’re inspired to make something new, Coolest Projects is the place for them. We can’t wait to see what they create!
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We’re currently trialling the full integration of our Code Editor in some of the projects on our Projects site, with the aim of providing a seamless experience for young learners. Our Projects site provides hundreds of free coding projects with step-by-step instructions for young people to use at school, in Code Clubs and CoderDojo clubs, and at home. When learners make text-based programming projects in our Python and web design project paths, they use our Code Editor to write and run code in a web browser.
Our new integrated learning experience allows young people to follow the project instructions and work in the Code Editor in a single window. By providing a simpler workspace, where learners do not need to switch between windows to read instructions and input code, we aim to reduce cognitive load and make it easier for young people to learn.
In the integrated project workspace, learners can access the project instructions, coding area, and output (where they can see what they have made) all in the same view. We have reorganised the project guides into short, easy-to-follow steps made up of simple instructions, including code snippets and modelled examples, for learners to work through to create their projects. The project guides feature fresh designs for different types of learning content, such as instruction steps, concept steps, code snippets, tips, and debugging help.
We have also optimised this learning experience for young people using mobiles and tablets. On mobile devices, a new ‘Steps’ tab appears alongside the ‘Code’ and ‘Output’ tabs, enabling learners to easily navigate to the project guide and follow the steps to make their projects.
We are testing our new integrated learning experience as a beta version in three projects:
In each of these projects, young people can choose to complete the original version of the project, with the project instructions and Code Editor in separate windows, or click the button on the project page to try out the new integrated learning experience.
We’d love to hear how your young learners get on with this new integrated experience. Try it out in the three projects above and share your feedback with us here.
Code Editor developments have been made possible with generous support from the Cisco Foundation.
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In our series of community stories, we celebrate some of the wonderful things young people and educators around the world are achieving through the power of technology.
In our latest story, we’re heading to Vivek High School in Mohali, India, to meet Sahibjot, a 14-year-old coding enthusiast who has taken his hobby to the next level thanks to mentorship, Code Club, and the exciting opportunity to take part in the Coolest Projects 2023 global online showcase.
When he was younger, Sahibjot loved playing video games. His interest in gaming led him to discover the world of game development, and he was inspired to find out more and try it out himself. He began to learn to code in his spare time, using tutorials to help him develop his skills.
Keen to share the joy he had experienced from gaming, Sahibjot set himself the challenge of creating a game for his cousin. This project cemented his enthusiasm for coding and developing games of his own.
“I always felt that I have played so many games in my life, why not make one and others will enjoy the same experience that I had as a child.
For my cousin, I made a personal game for him, and he played it and he liked it very much, so once he played it, I felt that, yes, this is what I want to do with my life.” – Sahibjot
While continuing to hone his computing skills at home, Sahibjot heard that his school had started a Code Club. After initially feeling nervous about joining, his enthusiasm was bolstered by the club mentor, Rajan, talking about artificial intelligence and other interesting topics during the session, and he soon settled in.
At Code Club, with support and encouragement from Rajan, Sahibjot continued to develop and grow his coding skills. Alongside his technical skills, he also learned about teamwork and working collaboratively. He embraced the opportunity to help his peers, sharing his knowledge with others and becoming a mentor for younger club members.
“Last year, we joined this coding club together and we became friends. He’s a very friendly person. Whenever we need him, he just quickly helps us. He helps us to troubleshoot, find any bugs, or even fix our codes.” – Akshat, fellow Code Club member
The next step for Sahibjot came when Rajan introduced him and his fellow Code Club members to Coolest Projects. Coolest Projects is a celebration of young digital creators and the amazing things they make with technology. It offers participants the opportunity to share their tech creations in a global, online showcase, and local in-person events celebrating young creators are also held in several countries.
Sahibjot was eager to take part and showcase what he had made. He submitted a Python project, a ping-pong game, to the online showcase, and was very excited to then see his creation receive a special shout-out during the Coolest Projects global livestream event. He was delighted to share this achievement with his friends and family, and he felt proud to be representing his school and his country on a global stage.
“I told everyone around me that there was going to be a livestream and I possibly might be featured in that, so that was really exciting. I learned a lot about just not representing my school and myself as an individual, I learned about representing my whole nation.” — Sahibjot
Sahibjot’s passion for computing has helped shape his aspirations and ambitions. Looking to the future, he hopes to use his technology skills to benefit others and make an impact.
“Using code and technology and all of the things like that, I aspire to make effort to do something with the world, like help out people with technology.” — Sahibjot
To find out how you and young creators you know can get involved in Coolest Projects, visit coolestprojects.org. If the young people in your community are just starting out on their computing journey, visit our projects site for free, fun beginner coding projects.
For more information to help you set up a Code Club in your school, visit codeclub.org.
Join us in celebrating Sahibjot’s inspiring journey by sharing his story on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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With the rapid advances in digital technologies like artificial intelligence, it’s more important than ever that every young person has the opportunity to learn how computers are being used to change the world and to develop the skills and confidence to get creative with technology.
There’s no better way to develop those abilities (super powers even) than getting hands-on experience of programming, whether that’s coding an animation, designing a game, creating a website, building a robot buggy, or training an AI classification model. That’s what tens of thousands of young people do every day in Code Clubs all over the world.
We were absolutely thrilled to organise a Code Club at Number Ten Downing Street last week, hosted by the UK Prime Minister’s wife Akshata Murty as part of Lessons at 10.
Lessons at 10 is an initiative to bring school children from all over the UK into Number Ten Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister. Every week different schools visit to attend lessons led by education partners covering all kinds of subjects.
We ran a Code Club for 20 Year 7 students (ages 11 to 12) from schools in Coventry and Middlesex. The young people had a great time with the Silly eyes and Ghostbusters projects from our collections of Scratch projects. Both stone-cold classics in my opinion, and a great place to start if you’re new to programming.
You may have spotted in the photos that the young people were programming on Raspberry Pi computers (the incredible Raspberry Pi 400 made in Wales). We also managed to get our hands on some cool new monitors.
Mrs Murty’s father was one of the founders of Infosys, which ranks among the world’s most successful technology companies, founded in India and now operating all over the world. So it is perhaps no surprise that she spoke eloquently to the students about the importance of every young person learning about technology and seeing themselves as digital creators not consumers.
We were lucky enough to be in one of the rather fancy rooms in Number Ten, featuring a portrait by John Constable of his niece Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer. Mrs Murty reminded us that one of the lessons we learn from Ada Lovelace is that computer programming combines both the logical and artistic aspects of human intelligence. So true.
Since Code Club’s launch in April 2012, it has grown to be the world’s largest movement of free computing clubs and has supported over 2 million young people to get creative with technology.
Code Clubs provide a free, fun, and safe environment for young people from all backgrounds to develop their digital skills. Run by teachers and volunteers, most Code Clubs take place in schools, and there are also lots in libraries and other community venues.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides a broad range of projects that young people use to build their confidence and skills with lots of different hardware and software. The ultimate goal is that they are empowered to combine their logical and artistic skills to create something original. Just like Ada Lovelace did all those years ago.
All of our projects are designed to be self-directed, so young people can learn independently or in groups. That means that you don’t need to be a tech expert to set up or run a Code Club. We provide you with all the support that you need to get started.
If you want to find out more about how to set up a Code Club, visit the website here.
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Since November, registration is open for Mission Space Lab, part of the European Astro Pi Challenge 2023/24. The Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the Raspberry Pi Foundation that gives young people up to age 19 the amazing opportunity to write computer programs that run on board the International Space Station (ISS). It is free to take part and young people can participate in two missions: Mission Zero, designed for beginners, and Mission Space Lab, designed for more experienced coders.
This year, Mission Space Lab has a brand-new format. As well as introducing a new activity for teams to work on, we have created new resources to support teams and mentors, and developed a special tool to help teams test their programs.
A big motivator for these changes was to make the activity more accessible and enable more young people to have their code run in space. Listening to feedback from participants and mentors, we are creating the opportunity for even more teams to submit programs that run on the ISS this year, by offering a specific activity and providing more extensive support materials.
For this year’s mission, ESA astronauts have given teams a specific scientific task to solve: to calculate the speed that the ISS is travelling as it orbits the Earth. People working in science often investigate a specific phenomenon or try to solve a particular problem. They have to use their knowledge and skills and the available tools to find ways to answer their research question. For Mission Space Lab, teams will work just like this. They will look at what sensors are available on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS, develop a solution, and then write a Python program to execute it. To test their program, they will use the new Astro Pi Replay software tool we’ve created, which simulates running their program on board the ISS.
To help teams and mentors take part in Mission Space Lab, we are providing a variety of supporting materials:
We have also run virtual sessions to help mentors and teams familiarise themselves with the new Mission Space Lab activity, and to ask any technical questions they might have. You can watch the recordings of these sessions on YouTube:
Astro Pi Replay is a new simulation tool that we have developed to support Mission Space Lab teams to test their programs. The tool simulates running programs on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS. It is a Python library available as a plug-in to install in the Thonny IDE where teams write their programs. Thanks to this tool, teams can develop and test their programs on any computer that supports Python, without the need for hardware like the Astro Pi units on board the ISS.
The Astro Pi Replay tool works by replaying a data set captured by a Mission Space Lab team in May 2023. The data set includes readings from the Astro Pi ‘s sensors, and images taken by its visible-light camera like the ones below. Whenever teams run their programs in Thonny with Astro Pi Replay, the tool replays some of this historical data. That means teams can use the historical data to test their programs and calculations.
One of the benefits of using this simulation tool is that it gives teams a taste of what they can expect if their program is run on the ISS. By replaying a sequence of data captured by the Astro Pis in space, teams using sensors will be able to see what kind of data can be collected, and teams using the camera will be able to see some incredible Earth observation images.
If you’re curious about how Astro Pi Replay works, you’ll be pleased to hear we are making it open source soon. That means you’ll be able to look at the source code and find out exactly what the library does and how.
Community members have consistently reported how amazing it is for teams to receive unique Earth observation photos and sensor data from the Astro Pis, and how great the images and data are to inspire young people to participate in their computing classes, clubs, or events. Through the changes we’ve made to Mission Space Lab this year, we want to support as many young people as possible to have the opportunity to engage in space science and capture their own data from the ISS.
If you want a taste of how fantastic Astro Pi is for learners, watch the story of St Joseph’s, a rural Irish school where participating in Astro Pi has inspired the whole community.
Submissions for Mission Space Lab 2023/24 are open until 19 February 2024, so there’s still time to take part! You can find full details and eligibility criteria at astro-pi.org/mission-space-lab.
If you have any questions about the European Astro Pi Challenge, please get in touch at contact@astro-pi.org.
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