British Science Week: Coding with SCRATCH

• newEditor
• Computing
• LessonUp
• Primary Education
• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)

Introduction

A lesson for British Science Week. Children are challenged to design their own scratch programme with a time travelling theme.

Time Travelling Programmers

British Science Week 2026

•  understand why time is important for computer programmers.

• Create a time-travel-themed coding project using Scratch

By the end of this lesson, you will:

Explain the learning objective to the students. Emphasize the importance of understanding time and its role in computing.

What might happen if we didn't know the time?

In this slide, you can gather student understanding of the concept of time and relate it directly to the theme of computing.

All student responses are kept in the reports area in LessonUp, so you can easily refer back to them at a later date.

Time is important!

In coding, faster is normally better. You don't want to wait around for your game to load!

Programmes often need to send messages to each other. Programmers need to make sure these are send at the right time!

Can you think of any other computing jobs?

Why is time important to them?

Computer programmers need to know how fast their programmes are and how long it takes to do different things.

Explain the learning objective to the students. Emphasize the importance of understanding time and its role in computing.

Take photos of all the things in your class that link with time...before the time runs out!

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Children can upload their images directly into your lesson via the LessonUp student app.

You can either download this directly onto student devices or go to lessonup.app

If you would like to know more about this, do check out our help pages.

Create a time travel programme using Scratch

Go to the Scratch Website

1.

Delete the cat and choose your own character

2.

Choose your backdrop that represents 'present day'.

3.

Explain the learning objective to the students. Emphasize the importance of understanding time and its role in computing.

Which block is used to repeat a set of actions?

Which block is used to repeat a set of actions?

A

Repeat

B

Control

C

Looks

D

Scratch

Which block is used to change the appearance of sprites?

Which block is used to change the appearance of sprites?

A

Repeat

B

Scratch

C

Control

D

Looks

Which block is used to control the flow of a program?

Which block is used to control the flow of a program?

A

Repeat

B

Scratch

C

Looks

D

Control

Coding your background

Click on your present day background and go to 'events'. Drag out 'when flag is clicked' block.

1.

Go to the "Control" category and use a "repeat" block to create a visual effect of time travel. 

2.

We chose a fisheye effect but choose anything which is effective.

3.

Explain the learning objective to the students. Emphasize the importance of understanding time and its role in computing.

Coding your sprite

Click on your sprite and go to events. Choose the 'when flag is clicked' block.

1.

Again, choose a repeat block. We have used 100 but you can decide on the number.

2.

Use one of the motion blocks or sound blocks to make your sprite come to life!

3.

Explain the learning objective to the students. Emphasize the importance of understanding time and its role in computing.

Who is your character and where will you be travelling to?

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I enjoyed being a time travelling programmer.