You’d think that the most popular event at a computer science playground might involve putting a computer together. But for Cambridge Public School’s Computer Science Playground, the honor of most beloved activity fell in the other direction: taking laptops apart.

“Throughout the year, we’re telling kids, ‘Don’t pop the keys off the keyboard,’” says Gina Roughton, assistant director of educational technology for the Massachusetts school district. “This time, we’re telling them to go for it.”

The laptop dissection, designed to educate students on the hardware component of computer science, was a part of last year’s sixth grade STEM “playground” across the district. A growing number of schools and districts are strategically incorporating these exploratory spaces into their offerings in an effort to nurture STEM interest and decompartmentalize computer science.