Earlier this week, fourth-graders at Mars Area Elementary School welcomed parents/guardians and family members to check out dioramas that they designed and built based on the movie, Home Alone.

After watching the movie in class, the students began the project by discussing cause and effect as part of an English/language arts lesson. The fourth-graders then began working in groups to design and build scale model traps to catch the burglars and save the movie’s main character, Kevin.

In their STEAM classes, after practicing coding lights and motors using an iPad and the Birdblox app, the students added Hummingbird Robotics components to their dioramas. The students then transferred the code into Microsoft MakeCode and loaded the programs onto a Microbit microcontroller for each classroom “house” to allow the program to run without the need for a laptop or iPad.

The final projects were on display in the school’s gym earlier this week and, on Dec. 17, the students invited their families to view the dioramas. Visitors could also take pictures in front of Home Alone backdrops and photo booth stations, painted by art teacher Katie Frye.

For more information, call (724) 625-3161.