Fourth Graders Code Their Own Longhouses
ANGOLA, NY – Fourth graders in Sarah Kauzala’s class at A.J. Schmidt Elementary built their own Haudenosaunee longhouses this fall, one block and one line of code at a time. On Oct. 26, they stood in front of their classmates and walked everyone through what they made.
The class first studied longhouses and Native American history. Then, with help from Deann Poleon of the district’s technology team, each student designed a longhouse in 3D using CoSpaces Edu, a program where students build a world and then code what happens in it.
Built from the ground up
Students started with little more than the walls. Everything else, they placed themselves. Even a river took work: import a circle, color it, then change its material until it looks like water. Then came the coding. A deer that walks to the riverbank had to be told to walk, and told to lie down when it got there.
Walking classmates through a scene, one detail at a time. 
Pointing out what she built and coded. 
Getting a project up on the big screen. Stories inside the walls
No two longhouses were alike. Clan symbols stood outside: a deer, a beaver, a fox, a wolf. Inside, students added fires, furs, clay pots and corn, a mother holding her baby, and in one, an elder telling children the story of Sky Woman. Mrs. Kauzala pointed out that it showed the oral tradition the class had learned about.
Outside, there were forests and shorelines, a wolf drinking from the river, a snake loose in the woods and an eagle overhead. One student switched the whole scene to nighttime.
A real audience
After each presentation, classmates gave specific feedback, like the bird flying over the beach, the frogs on lily pads, or the way one student made every person in the longhouse do something different. Students were also honest about what didn’t work yet. A few ran out of time, and one found the program lagging as he kept adding trees.
Mrs. Kauzala said the class had set this project aside for a few years because it’s a hard one: students really have to figure it out. This year’s group did. Mrs. Poleon told the class she was impressed that fourth graders got up and presented, and even more impressed by how kind they were to each other while they did.
Running presentations from the front of the room. 
Getting the next presenter set up. 
Behind the scenes at the classroom computer. Earlier this month, Lake Shore fourth graders also saw Seneca Nation history up close on their trip to Salamanca.