In computer science, algorithms (a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer) are translated into programs or code that provide instructions for computing devices. In this lesson, students will analyze a given stem and leaf plot by finding the mean, median, mode, and range of the data and will then become the “bots” and navigate themselves to an ending point on a 6x6 grid containing the corresponding correct answer(s), being sure to avoid the warning signs!

In this lesson, students will use Excel or Google Sheets to organize test score data and calculate the mean, median, mode, and range of the data.

This activity will show the sorting process using the Merge Sort Divide and Conquer algorithm that is used by a computer when sorting data without using a computer.

This choiceboard provides students the opportunity to earn points by demonstrating their coding skills.

See how the computer science standards progress from the 6th-8th grades, so that teachers and coaches can get a better understanding of the skill progression.

Vocabulary posters for the Computing Systems strand for Middle School Elective. Words included are from the 2017 Computer Science Curriculum Framework.

Vocabulary posters for the Cybersecurity strand for the Middle School Elective. Words included are from the 2017 Computer Science Curriculum Framework.

Overview of the activity: Introduce students to the Brainpop videos to open the discussion of what magnets are and how they can be used.  

An integrated Mathematics and computer science lesson to rEnglishte using models to solve problems to using computing systems to model the attributes and behaviors associated with a concept.

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.

During this lesson, students will act as computers while they practice identifying and applying rules in growing patterns. Students will compete to accurately extend their growing pattern the longest within the time frame given. When the event occurs… time’s up!

The teacher will read a story to the class and allow for discussion of what has happened and ask for predictions. Students will use hands-on manipulatives and stories to debug algorithms while also working on editing sentences for capitalization, punctuation and spelling.

A simulation is a virtual representation of a process that reflects how a real physical situation would most likely happen. Simulations are created using models that were developed based on data. Models are constructed to test a hypothesis. In Grade 6, students will use models to represent systems and simulations to represent processes and to support a hypothesis. In this lesson, students will create a hypothesis and test it using a computer model or simulation involving fractions and mixed numbers.

Students will work in partners for this multiplication game. They will take turns reading and answering a multiplication question. They will code an algorithm to give instructions for their game piece to move along a path. The path for moving their game piece will lead to the correct answer (product) spot on the grid mat. If the student is correct, they get a point. If they are incorrect, the partner gets a point. They may write their answers on an answer sheet or notebook paper to turn in for their produced work.

In this lesson, students will create a ‘Museum of Westward Expansion Inventions’ using the platform twinery.org. This tour will include multiple types of links that will be written in code two different ways and citations to photos to prove the veracity of the images students provide. In the end, students will have their own little piece of history with artifacts (images) that are properly cited and linked.

The teacher will create 5 stations. These stations act as computer programs. Each computer program will have it’s own instructions. At each computer program station there will be a mini mystery box and a spinner. The mystery box acts as a computing system, a group of items (the input) that will interact with the outside world which in this case is the person pulling an item out (output) of the mystery box. Inside the mystery box will be a number of possible objects to pull out including candy. The other computing system is a digital spinner on the Promethean Panel or other projection device, and the tangible, hands on spinners. The input or possible outcomes are listed on the spinner. Because of the input of possibilities, the outcome is what the spinner landed on. Students will investigate computer processing through the experiments of finding the probability of picking certain objects or items.

Students will listen to a fiction story in which the characters earn money to buy goods or services. During the read aloud, students will identify the producers, consumers, goods, and services. Students will gain an understanding that materials, including books, are created by producers. After the story, explain that the author and illustrator are producers of a good. Students will fill out a graphic organizer on economics using a nonfiction book about spending money. Explain that because they found the facts in someone else’s work, they need to give them credit. Students will cite their source of information on the graphic organizer.

The student will learn parts of a computer by exploration and creating their own computer.

The student will categorize words heard in a Jack Hartmann Youtube video as either nouns or verbs.

Students will sort and graph attributes of the Lakota, Powhatan, and Pueblo tribe. They will then rotate through groups and make models of items.