Somerville schools win National STEM Competition sponsored by a Patriots Super Bowl champ

SOMMERVILLE, Mass. — A Patriots Super Bowl champion is delivering a bit of a hit in the classroom. He’s mixing computer science with physical education and showing students STEM learning doesn’t always happen in front of a computer. “I think it’s really cool that this small of a school we were able to win, even with not that many people we were able to jump fast and program,” said Isla Grandowetter, a student at Benjamin Brown School in Somerville.

The Somerville School District won the national Jonathan Jones Get Active Coding Challenge. The Patriots defensive back partnered with Unruly Studios Unruly Splats Memberships - Coding For Kids | Unruly Splats, a Boston-based education company, that helps schools connect active play with learning to code. The two-time Super Bowl champ congratulated the elementary students via Zoom Wednesday morning. The students used programmable floor buttons that they coded to light up, make sounds, and collect points when stomped on. “I got to use my feet a lot and it was very enjoying,” said Sushant Sharma, a 5th-grade student at the Benjamin Brown School.

The Somerville Public School district stacked up a total of 300,000 stomps, the equivalent of more than 50,000 calories burned. “What was really great about this challenge is that it got kids out of their seats, so instead of just coding on an Ipad they were jumping around the library, which was really great, especially, after the year we had on Zoom,” said Laura Peura, library media specialist at the Benjamin Brown School.

More than 60 schools across the country participated in the Get Active Coding Challenge, tallying more than 3 million stomps in just the month of December. As an added bonus for winning the challenge principal, Shawn Maguire agreed to get a pie in the face. “It just seems natural to them. They’re not affected at all by technology. It doesn’t scare them and as you can see by the results, it was a super event and very proud to be chosen,” Maguire said.

In addition to the Coding Challenge, the Jonathan Jones Next Step Foundation Jonathan Jones Official Next Step Foundation (jonathanjonesnextstep.org) is offering $6,500 scholarships to expand access to computer science education. Two of the schools will be in

Massachusetts.

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