Students will complete a mini research project focusing on either the advantages or disadvantages of transmitting information over the Internet, with the focus areas of speed, reliability, cost, and security.

This activity will show the sorting process using the Bubble Sort Brute Force algorithm that is used by a computer when sorting data without using a computer.

One of the fundamental computer science concepts is that everything we do on a computer is really just turning binary digits on and off. Even though this sounds simple, it can be a concept that is hard to wrap one's head around. This activity brings the binary concept to reality through the creation of binary bracelets or bookmarks.

The Card Flip Magic trick helps to demonstrate how computers detect errors in the binary data they send and receive using parity checks. Inspired by Parity magic from CS Unplugged

When you make an LED card, you are bringing together the fundamentals of electronics that make up computing devices - power (battery), input (using a pressure sensor to open or close a circuit) and output (LED light). It’s also a great way to reinforce the binary states of on and off that are at the core of how all computing devices work.

Inspired by Dear Data, a book that highlights a year-long data drawing project between two friends, this activity helps students go through the process of telling a story with their own data by formulating a question, collecting the data, analyzing the data, and interpreting and communicating their story.

With advances in AI, it is more important than ever that we consider how humans and computers will interact. How do you want the robots of the future to behave towards you and others? For this activity, students will make a “robot zine” where they will sketch an original robot design, identify how their robot will sense the world around it and write a code of conduct to describe how their robot will interact with humans.

Every day our privacy is at risk with data being collected about us as we share and live more of our lives online. For this activity, you will explore how you do and do not protect your privacy online and then create a security avatar to help you battle for your privacy.

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

In this unplugged lesson, students will learn about significant landmarks and geographic features in different regions of the world. They will use their knowledge of maps and globes to locate these landmarks and then remind students how computer scientists use decomposition to make large problems easier to solve by breaking them down into smaller subproblems. Students will apply their problem decomposition skills to break down a complex problem rEnglishted to planning a trip to visit some of these landmarks.

After completing a rough draft of a teacher-directed writing assignment, students will work together as de-bugging buddies to engage in the peer editing process using a rubric to document the mistakes that their peer has made. Students will fill out the rubric with the appropriate scale for the writing they are editing.

During this lesson, students will create algorithms using repeating pattern loops for their classmates to follow. Instead of using shape or number patterns, students will create algorithms for their classmates to follow by completing physical movement (clapping, spinning in a circle, jumping jacks, etc.).

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!