In this lesson, students will engage in socio-political critique as they think through what might happen when people fail to successfully complete different parts of the problem-solving process. Students will engage in a case study of Summit Learning, a “personalized” learning platform that led to protests and walkouts. They will think through how the designers of Summit Learning failed to solve their problem, and then make a plan to solve a problem of their own using the problem-solving process.

In this activity, students will use a model of a computer, taking the form of a sort of board game, to explore writing programs that include input, output, variables, and arithmetic. Students will read, write, and debug pseudocode as they work on solving simple programming problems using manipulatives. This lesson is part of the ECS+Python lesson set, providing supplemental Python curricular material for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum.

"In this lesson, students will read and trace a “Hello World'' Python program to learn how to display simple output. Then, they will create an “Addition Calculator” to learn how to work with variables and arithmetic operators. At the end, students will modify and complete partially-written Python programs, applying their knowledge of variables and arithmetic operations. This lesson is part of CodeVA's ECS+Python lesson set, providing alternative units for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum covering basic Python coding concepts.

In this project, students create a program that performs calculations on input values to produce formatted output. Students will choose a project to create from a list of three options, or generate their own option that meets the activity requirements. This lesson is part of CodeVA's ECS+Python lesson set, providing alternative units for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum covering basic Python coding concepts.

In this lesson, students will explore the “Testing Random Numbers” program to learn how to generate random numbers and use if-statements to make comparisons. Then, they will create a “Roll the Dice Game” to learn how to work conditionals and random numbers. At the end, students will create a simple program applying their knowledge of randomization and conditional control structures. This lesson is part of CodeVA's ECS+Python lesson set, providing alternative units for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum covering basic Python coding concepts.

In this lesson, students will implement Python programs that use “while” loops and logical operations as they consider how they might make their programs more interactive and control the flow of commands in their programs. They’ll read and modify examples, explore the new concepts through paired programming, and complete a short mini-project where they will demonstrate their new skills. This lesson is part of CodeVA's ECS+Python lesson set, providing alternative units for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum covering basic Python coding concepts.

In this lesson, students will implement Python programs that use “while” loops and logical operations as they consider how they might make their programs more interactive and control the flow of commands in their programs. They’ll read and modify examples, explore the new concepts through paired programming, and complete a short mini-project where they will demonstrate their new skills. This lesson is part of CodeVA's ECS+Python lesson set, providing alternative units for the Exploring Computer Science curriculum covering basic Python coding concepts.

In this activity, students will explore the idea of “data” and how it provides a lens through which to view different aspects of human experience. Students will interrogate the affordances and constraints of data as a form of representation and speculate about the effects data can have on human perception and behavior by fitting data into different schemata, developing their own data schemata, and comparing the data schemata of different institutions in their lives with the schemata they develop to represent themselves.

In this project, students will create artistic data representations, expressive artifacts based on data sets. Before engaging in their own projects, students will briefly research and discuss data-based art making in history and in contemporary times. Then, students will use the remaining 3 instructional days to create their art. The resources below provide support for two kinds of representational projects—data-based music, and data-based visual art on a grid (similar to the weaving art discussed in ECS 1.11-14).

Students will explore how computers are embedded in the activities of their ‘every day’ through keeping a technology journal and sharing their timeline with a group of students or the class. Through this activity, students learn to find examples of their own definition of computing before engaging in the class discussion about how we might choose to classify computers by their characteristics. Students end the activity by designing a technology that solves a common/current problem in their own routine (“I wish there was a computer that could help me…..”). Through this examination, students will learn that computers can do many things to help humans solve problems on micro and macro levels.A supplementary lesson plan for ECS Unit 1, days 1-2 by Perry Shank

In this activity, students will explore computational sequencing (the process of putting specific instructions to be executed by a computer in order) by engaging with recipes. Students will think through how a computer might interpret instructions, create instruction sets based on these insights, and share favorite recipes as they try to arrange instructions in a format that a computer might understand.

In this activity, students will create a model of a computer designed to accomplish important tasks that align with their personal interests or the needs of a friend/family member they interviewed in a previous lesson. Then, students will discuss tradeoffs in design: the value judgements computer designers make when they build computers for consumers to purchase.

In this lesson, students will learn about using binary encoding to represent numbers and text. They’ll use several different encoding techniques, and then develop and test their own protocol for encoding other kinds of information into binary.

In this extension, students will evaluate the role of data collection in their lives. They’ll identify some common data collection practices, evaluate the ethics of those practices, and develop a framework for thinking about when data collection is appropriate and when it is exploitative.

In this activity, students will compete in a shell game tournament while they learn about different search strategies that computers perform on sorted collections of data.

Students will use minimum spanning trees to analyze a problem and provide insights into addressing the problem. The lesson provides detailed support around analyzing transportation infrastructure in their community and assessing its impact on the lives of different people who use it. Students create minimum spanning trees based on data, solve the trees to generate insights about the data, and communicate those insights along with policy recommendations based on their analysis.

In this activity, students will develop an idea for a new website they will create to practice their new web accessibility knowledge & development skills. Students will assess what sorts of websites they might create to serve as a platform for information sharing, serving the needs of a particular user group in their school or community, or curating resources around a particular topic.

In this lesson, students will explore the relationship between website file size, request volume, and internet speed. They will then unpack how website design impacts accessibility for web users with slow or unreliable internet, outdated computers, or other constraints that lead to information access issues.

In this activity, students will write code that includes semantic HTML elements, and explore how semantic HTML helps make HTML easier to read, and increases the accessibility of websites for people who use screen readers and other assistive technologies.

In this activity, students will create and share websites designed in the previous Web Design Ideation lesson. They will reflect on their efforts, share assessments of their successes and challenges, and evaluate the affordances and constraints of web design as a problem-solving tool.