According to Excerpt from Home-School Relations: Working Successfully with Parents and Families Henderson and Berla (1994), "the most accurate predictor of a student's achievement in school is not income or social status but the extent to which that student's family is able to: Create a home environment that encourages learning, express high (but not unrealistic) expectations for their children's achievement and future careers, and become involved in their children's education at school and in the community. This study shows “that parent involvement activities that are effectively planned and well implemented result in substantial benefits to children, parents, educators, and the school.”

In an effort to get family members/caregivers more involved with their student’s education, Waco Elementary fourth grade and the Madison County 4-H program collaborated to host a Hour of Coding Day for students and their family.  The 4-H Program sought out 4-H curriculum that deal with technology and used resources provided by National 4-H. The teacher and the 4-H Agent planned a day that would incorporate multiple subject areas to help educate the students the different aspects of coding. In math they will continue developing their skills with making patterns that will correlate with them creating code. In writing they will be learning what autonomous robots are and how they might be used in our future within society.  This may make for a great debate. In reading they are going to be learning how engineers are designing robots to mimic movement of animals.

 This event took place during the school time so we have 100% of the students involved and around 50% of the family members attended.  During this day the students sat with the family members and taught them all the coding and robotics lessons they have received through 4-H this year.  The lessons ranged from lessons from Junk Drawer Robotics curriculum, the 4-H Lego Robotics lessons, Ozobots, and also Sphero Balls.  The students demonstrated the art of coding technology and the importance of learning this skill for future careers.  The family members who attended had the opportunity to use the robots as well and was given the 4-H introduction.  The 4-H Agent also promoted the evening clubs as a marketing tool to bring more students to the 4-H Lego Robotics Club.   

100% of the family members who attended thought this event should continue every year.  100% did not know what their students were talking about when they would go home and talk about the technology lessons they were learning, so seeing it for themselves really helped.  80% of the students, whose family attended, were able to teach their family member something they did not know about robots.  

CES and the Waco staff will continue to provide lessons on STEAM projects.  Waco Elementary houses some of the poorest and most rural students in the county so CES is one of their main resources when it comes to robotics.