After completing background research on what it was like to live during the colonial times students will be placed in a Minecraft world where they will have to collaborate with a group of classmates to build a colony that provides food and protection since the game will be played in survival mode.

This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation. During this lesson, students will create a storyboard and pseudocode which will be used while creating a simulation using Scratch. 

Following Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars often means roving to places with interesting materials  to study, places away from the initial landing site. In this lesson, students experience the processes involved in engineering a communication protocol. To  reach their goal, students must create a calibrated solution within constraints and  parameters of communicating with a rover on Mars. Students will explore the opportunities and challenges of remote robotics by framing the problem around the idea that scientists and computer scientists must work together to successfully program rovers in remote locations like Mars. Students will also explore the idea that a robot simply follows a set of well defined algorithms.  Students will be provided a set of possible courses that their robot must navigate. Students will code their robot to navigate around the obstacles within the course to arrive at a set location.

Students will explore the opportunities and challenges of using renewable energy by selecting a Minecraft Biome and developing a home that utilizes the unique characteristics of that biome to create energy. The lesson is intended to be completed in two different parts. In Part 1, students will learn about how Clean Energy sources can be different based on the biome. They will also familiarize themselves with Minecraft. In Part 2, students will select a specific Minecraft world (6 different biomes) and will design and build a home that uses a renewable energy source unique to that biome.  

In this lesson students will be able to identify that computers, like the solar system, complete predictable actions based on a set of variables. Students will learn about the solar system via Scratch.  They will explore block coding and computational thinking practices as they utilize Scratch as a tool for creativity, expression and learning about the Solar System. 

This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.  During this lesson, students will create a timeline of space exploration.  

In this professional development presentation, educators learn about Algorithms (1 of the 7 components of Computational Thinking, according the Ignite My Future platform). This presentation can be used by individuals to learn about them, or used to present to others. The video is a recording of one of the sessions provided to teachers through a 7 week series of "CT Parties".Within this resource, you will find the presentation slides, a recording, a K-2 and 3-5 lesson to develop an understanding of algorithms, and activities to support parents understanding and home use of the strategy. This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.

In this professional development presentation, educators learn about Abstraction (1 of the 7 components of Computational Thinking, according the Ignite My Future platform). This presentation can be used by individuals to learn about them, or used to present to others. The video is a recording of one of the sessions provided to teachers through a 7 week series of "CT Parties".Within this resource, you will find the presentation slides, a recording, a K-2 and 3-5 lesson to build abstraction skills, and activities to support parents understanding and home use of the strategy. This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.

In this professional development presentation, educators learn about the 7 components of Computational Thinking, according the Ignite My Future platform. This presentation can be used by individuals to learn about them, or used to present to others. The video is a recording of one of the sessions provided to teachers through a 7 week series of "CT Parties".This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.

In this professional development presentation, educators learn about Decomposing Problems (1 of the 7 components of Computational Thinking, according the Ignite My Future platform). This presentation can be used by individuals to learn about them, or used to present to others. The video is a recording of one of the sessions provided to teachers through a 7 week series of "CT Parties".Within this resource, you will find the presentation slides, a recording, a K-2 and 3-5 lesson to build decomposing skills, and activities to support parents understanding and home use of the strategy. This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.

 This lesson is part of the Virginia K-12 Computer Science Pipeline which is partly funded through a GO Virginia grant in partnership with Chesapeake Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and the Loudoun Education Foundation.  Students will design and conduct an investigation to answer the question, "What is the relationship between mass and distance a robot travels?"  The lesson uses WeDo 2.0 robots; however, other robots may be used as well as conducted without robotics.  This lesson was written for 5th graders; however, the content alignes with SOL PS.8 as well.