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Computer Science for Fun: What Is Computational Thinking?
Find out about teaching computational in the classroom, and then link to some classroom resources and student activities to teach these skills.
Unite for Literacy
Unite for Literacy: Technology: Teach Your Computer
This book introduces the concept of computer programming to young students. Includes audio narration in six additional languages with text in English.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Curiosity Killed the App
Students gain experience with the software/system design process, closely related to the engineering design process, to solve a problem. First, they learn about the Mars Curiosity rover and its mission, including the difficulties that...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Robotics Peripheral Vision
This unit is designed for advanced programming classes. It leads students through a study of human vision and computer programming simulation. Students apply their previous knowledge of arrays and looping structures to implement a new...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Android App Development
Students develop an app for an Android device that utilizes its built-in internal sensors, specifically the accelerometer. The goal of this activity is to teach programming design and skills using MIT's App Inventor software (free to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mars Rover App Creation
Based on their experience exploring the Mars rover Curiosity and learning about what engineers must go through to develop a vehicle like Curiosity, students create Android apps that can control LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots, simulating the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Computer Simulation of the Sonoran Desert Community
The computer program's simulation of a Sonoran desert community should ultimately strengthen the student's comprehension of what is required for a natural ecosystem to sustain itself (remain in balance). This computer simulation program...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Flow Charting App Inventor Tutorials
Students design and create flow charts for the MIT App Inventor tutorials in this computer science activity about program analysis. In program analysis, which is based on determining the behavior of computer programs, flow charts are an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Exploring Acceleration With an Android
Students conduct an experiment to study the acceleration of a mobile Android device. During the experiment, they run an application created with MIT's App Inventor that monitors linear acceleration in one-dimension. Students use an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Storing Android Accelerometer Data: App Design
Students work through an online tutorial on MIT's App Inventor to learn how to create Android applications. Using those skills, they create their own applications and use them to collect data from an Android device accelerometer and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Music by Touch
Through a hands-on design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots, students learn programming skills and logic design as they program robot computers to play sounds and rotate a wheel when a touch sensor is pressed, and then...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Implementing Biomimicry and Sustainable Design
This unit provides students with an opportunity to study ecological relationships with an emphasis on the Sonoran Desert. Students appreciate the complexity and balance that supports the exchange of energy and matter within food webs....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: How Far Does the Robot Go?
Students practice their multiplication skills using robots with wheels built from LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT kits. They brainstorm distance travelled by the robots without physically measuring distance and then apply their math skills to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Line Follower Challenge
Student groups are challenged to program robots with light sensors to follow a black line. Learning both the logic and skills behind programming robots for this challenge helps students improve their understanding of how robots work, and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pingus Penguins: Writing Good Instructions
Students use the free computer game Pingus to learn how engineers, specifically environmental engineers, use their technical writing skills to give instructions and follow the instructions of others. Students learn to write instructions...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Evolving Tce Biodegraders
A hypothetical scenario is introduced in which the class is asked to apply their understanding of the forces that drive natural selection to prepare a proposal along with an environmental consulting company to help clean up an area near...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wide World of Gears
In an interactive and game-like manner, students learn about the mechanical advantage that is offered by gears. By virtue of the activity's mechatronics presentation, students learn to study a mechanical system as a dynamic system under...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Power of Mechanical Advantage
Students learn about the mechanical advantage offered by pulleys in an interactive and game-like manner. By virtue of the activity's mechatronic presentation, they learn to study a mechanical system not as a static image, but rather as a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Putting Robots to Work With Force & Friction
Students learn about the concept of pushing, as well as the relationship between force and mass. Students practice measurement skills using pan scales and rulers to make predictions about mass and distance. A LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot is...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Robo Clock
Students learn various topics associated with the circle through studying a clock. Topics include reading analog time, understanding the concept of rotation (clockwise vs. counter-clockwise), and identifying right angles and straight...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Robotic Perimeter
Students learn and practice how to find the perimeter of a polygonal shape. Using a ruler, they measure model rooms made of construction paper walls. They learn about other tools, such as a robot, that can help them take measurements....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Robot Wheels!
Students solidify their understanding of the terms "circumference" and "rotation" through the use of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics components. They measure the circumference of robot wheels to determine how far the robot can travel during...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Trebuchet Launch
Students work as engineers to design and test trebuchets (in this case LEGO MINDSTORMS robots) that can launch objects. During the testing stage, they change one variable at a time to study its effect on the outcome of their designs....
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: It's a Connected World: The Beauty of Network Science
Students learn about complex networks and how to use graphs to represent them. They also learn that graph theory is a useful part of mathematics for studying complex networks in diverse applications of science and engineering, including...