  We investigate how the integration of visual agent-based programming and
computationally augmented physical structures can support curricular
integration across STEM domains for elementary grade students. We introduce
ViMAP-Tangible, a socio-technically distributed computational learning
environment, which integrates ultrasonic sensors with the ViMAP visual
programming language using a distributed computation infrastructure. In this
paper, we report a study in which 3rd and 4th grade students used
ViMAP-Tangible to engage in collaborative design-based activities in order to
invent 'drawing machines' for generating geometric shapes. The curricular
activities integrate engineering practices such as user-centered design,
mathematical reasoning about multiplication, rates and fractions, and physical
science concepts central to learning Newtonian mechanics. We identify the key
affordances of the learning environment and our pedagogical approach in terms
of the relationship between the structural elements of students' physical
constructions and computational models, and their learning outcomes, both in
terms of computational thinking, and the domain-specific, mathematical and
scientific knowledge that they began developing.
