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 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.

In this lesson sequence, students will work in teams to learn the MakeCode and Micro:Bit Development platform. They’ll develop basic programming skills, implementing input, output, variables, and conditional control structures. At the end of the sequence, students will compete in a “puzzle box” challenge, attempting to create a puzzle using their Micro:Bit, code, and craft supplies and earning points based on how challenging their puzzle is to solve.

In this lesson, students learn the basics of coding for the Micro:Bit using the MakeCode development tool. Students will engage in PRIMM cycles, pair programming, and will begin working on the puzzle box they’ll finish in later lessons by building an “unlocking” animation using display output blocks.This lesson is part of the Micro:Bit Puzzle Box four-lesson sequence. Read about the sequence in the sequence overview, linked here.