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Case Study

Bellevue School District, Seattle area

Bellevue School District started with a pilot, expanding it until all eighth grade science teachers and all eighth grade students were included. The students use the Blackbird magnetism curriculum for two weeks each year, learning about magnetism by coding a simulation of a magnetically launched rocket.

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Physics concepts: 

  • Magnetic attraction / repulsion

  • Velocity

  • Acceleration

  • Air resistance

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Coding concepts:

  • The JavaScript canvas and its positioning system

  • Displaying images and text 

  • Variables

  • Conditionals (if statement)

  • Animation

  • Detecting mouse input

magnetism_page.png

1,178

students participated in 2025-26

970
82%

successfully completed the curriculum

4.5 hours

average time spent typing in the code editor

Students and their stars

Our system allows students to get the next line of code so they never get stuck -- we call it Show Me. But we use gamification to prevent overuse of Show Me. When students use it, they lose their star for the lesson; the only way to get it back is to restart the lesson. We generally encourage students to do lessons more than once. They can earn three stars per lesson by repeating the lesson. Many students enjoy Blackbird so much, they prove how smart they are by getting three stars on all the lessons.

24

number of lessons in the magnetism curriculum

24

median number of stars earned by a student

197
17%

students earning 72 stars (the maximum possible number) by repeating each lesson three times

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