How are messages to the right recipient? Introduce the concept of routing Internet traffic by drawing a comparison to sending a letter. Groups use the Internet Simulator program to send messages to others using the same router...

Introduce your class to encoding text. Pairs work together to create a protocol to send text prior to learning ASCII encoding. Groups then collaborate to send and translate ASCII codes creating a formatted text message. 

Pairs work through two scenarios that require them to generate an algorithm. The first activity requires pairs to define a common language to use; the second comes with the language. The pairs then must determine how to code the...

Solve a maze ... from a robot's point of view. In the lesson, your scholars build a small, simple maze from cardboard and then find a route from the start point to the finish point. They write an algorithmic process that a robot could...

Always check your assumptions when interpreting data and data visualizations. That's the take away from this exercise. Class members examine a failed project that looks at search trends to predict flu outbreaks and consider the...

Challenge young meteorologists to apply their knowledge of weather to build their own weather stations. The resource provides the directions to build a weather station that contains a wind vane, barometer, thermometer, and rain...

Let me break it down for you! Introduce your class to a way of breaking up a complicated task into its component pieces. Individuals draw a complex figure using JavaScript and then break it down to help determine the...

Take the old baking soda and vinegar volcano to the next level by using it to study repeated lava flows over time, examine geologic features on Earth and Mars, and speculate about some of the formations on Mars. 

A good complement to any integers unit contains a three-day lesson plan about positive and negative integers, adding and subtracting integers, and how to find the additive inverse. Additionally, it provides all necessary...

In this English worksheet, students read "New Computer Art Mirrors Viewer's Mood," and then respond to 47 fill in the blank, 7 short answer, 20 matching, and 8 true or false questions about the selection.

Building an accelerometer app for your Android device. Groups develop an app that uses the accelerometer on an Android device. The purpose of the activity is to reinforce the programming design. The post activity assessment challenges...

Introduce your classes to sensors and actuators in robots — specifically to the Roomba. Pupils develop programs that make Roomba utilize its different sensors.

"Data is so boring, there's no way to find any patterns in them."  Or is there? Pairs investigate data sets using different data visualization tools to discover a trend that may exist in a data set. Once they find a trend or...

How many colors do you know? The instructional activity teaches scholars how digital devices use binary and hexadecimal representations to store colors. They learn how millions of colors are available on these devices.

See how Boolean algebra relates to video games with a lesson that teaches young scholars how to use Boolean algebra to create rules for a virtual world. They test the rule base for consistency in groups.

Back to the (binary) basics. The resource provides a simple overview of binary code and gives two different activities to introduce it to elementary and middle school learners. Classmates write and decode messages to each other in binary...

Who knew sorting could be so much fun? Scholars participate in a sorting activity where they develop questions to place a list of numbers in order. They consider how these questions can be used as an algorithm.

In this energy alternatives and conservation learning exercise, students research the topic, answer 3 questions, then complete a 4 step plan to create a print or digital project.  This page has numerous links to web resources.

Monitor your third graders' progress with the Common Core ELA standards with this practice assessment. Provided with collection of three narrative reading passages, children must answer a series of evidence-based multiple...

The time has come to find out what your fourth grade readers have learned after another year of hard work. This Common Core-designed practice assessment provides two reading passages, one narrative and one expository, that children must...

With the end of the year quickly approaching it's time to find out exactly how much your sixth graders have learned. Specifically designed for the Common Core ELA standards, this practice test gives students five reading passages,...

Check in on the development of your fifth graders' reading and writing skills with this Common Core-designed assessment. Given a series of six reading passages ranging from narrative stories to informational texts, young...

Keep an eye on the growth of your sixth graders' reading and writing skills with the help of this practice Common Core assessment. Working their way through the six included fiction and nonfiction reading passages, learners answer a...

Ready your pupils for Common Core testing by providing them with practice. For this assessment, learners read and respond to a variety of different passages in both multiple-choice and essay format. An online version is also included.