BOARDMAN — Building blocks are an integral part of childhood development and early learning, and elementary students across the Boardman Local School District on Wednesday started using a different kind of building block.

The district participated in the Hour of Code, a worldwide movement to introduce children to computer science, and let high school students take the reins. Boardman High School students with an interest in education, computer science and coding brought their knowledge to second graders at all three of Boardman’s elementary buildings — West Boulevard, Stadium Drive and Robinwood Lane.

Ed Adams, the district’s supervisor of digital learning, said elementary students are exposed to computer science and technology all year, usually spending time once a week with a technology teacher in their building’s computer lab or their home classroom.

“All students at the elementary level are exposed to some kind of block coding,” he said. Adams said that after the holiday break, second-grade students will begin a unit on coding. “This is just a fun way to introduce them to that unit.”

Adams said the students are shown simple programs involving simple tasks, like getting a robot to move a certain number of spaces. To get the robot to move four spaces, for example, they would insert four blocks and add arrows to indicate the direction the robot should move.

“We’re trying to hit all grades with an emphasis on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math),” said district spokesperson Amy Radinovic. “This way, they get to have that experience with some older students, who they can see as role models, doing something they already think is cool.”

Radinovic said the district has implemented mentorship initiatives in other areas, including foreign language, with high school students supporting fifth- and sixth-graders.

The Little STEAMers club was formed a few years ago, Radinovic said, and the group usually goes to Center Intermediate School once a month to help fourth-graders with STEAM-focused projects.

Most, but not all, of the 30 or so students who came to teach coding on Wednesday were enrolled in courses like AP computer science principles, IT and repair, and Engineering and 3D Printing.

At Robinwood Lane Elementary, a group of girls — all members of the Little STEAMers Club — used a Dr. Suess Grinch-themed program. They did not know that Wednesday was Grinch Day, part of the district’s 12 Days of Christmas, with students wearing clothes to fit a different theme each day.

Teachers turned over their classrooms to the high school students, who taught second graders how to get a drone to pick up some presents that needed to be returned to Whoville.

In one room, Abigail Hall and Salsabeel Mousa, both juniors, walked around the classroom helping each student to enter the right command codes.

Hall started in the club her freshman year, when it was still new and said she enjoys helping younger students and hopes to guide the next generation of tech-savvy Boardman graduates.

She also noted that the club is largely composed of girls.

“There aren’t too many boys,” she said. “It’s more about the kids than the coding. We like helping them learn that but us girls also just like being around kids.”

Hall said while she enjoys coding and technology, she intends to build her career around helping kids in another way, as a pediatric nurse.