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Computational thinking for the sciences: a three day workshop for high school science teachers

Published: 10 March 2010 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes "Computational Thinking for the Sciences", a 3-day summer workshop for high school science and mathematics teachers. Our workshop emphasizes the deep connections between the natural sciences, mathematics and computer science through activities and simulation development appropriate for scientific explorations. Teachers were exposed to simulation development in VPython, a visual extension to the popular Python programming language. By broadening exposure of computational thinking to the natural sciences and developing activities specifically for science domains, we hope to attract new students into computer science and better prepare natural science students to employ the computational tools they will utilize in the future.

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Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington. Why Choose CSE?, http://www.cs.washington.edu/WhyCSE.
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S. Hambrusch, et al. SECANT : Science Education in Computational Thinking, http://secant.cs.purdue.edu/.
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M. Hart, J. P. Early, and D. Brylow. A novel approach to k-12 cs education: linking mathematics and computer science. In SIGCSE '08, pages 286--290.
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S. B. Needleman and C. D. Wunsch. A general method applicable to the search for similarities in the amino acid sequence of two proteins. J Mol Biol, 48(3):443---453, Mar 1970.
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D. Scherer and B. Sherwood. VPython, http://vpython.org.
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G. van Rossum. Python, http://www.python.org.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Bringing computational thinking into classrooms: a systematic review on supporting teachers in integrating computational thinking into K-12 classroomsInternational Journal of STEM Education10.1186/s40594-024-00510-611:1Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • (2023)Teacher Education to Integrate Computational Thinking into Elementary Science: A Design-Based Research StudyACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/361811523:4(1-36)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2023
  • (2022)Strengthening the coding skills of teachers in a low dropout Python MOOCAdvances in Mobile Learning Educational Research10.25082/AMLER.2022.01.0032:1(187-200)Online publication date: 2022
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  1. Computational thinking for the sciences: a three day workshop for high school science teachers

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGCSE '10: Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
    March 2010
    618 pages
    ISBN:9781450300063
    DOI:10.1145/1734263
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 10 March 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. computational thinking
    2. high school mathematics
    3. high school science
    4. k-12 outreach

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    • (2024)Bringing computational thinking into classrooms: a systematic review on supporting teachers in integrating computational thinking into K-12 classroomsInternational Journal of STEM Education10.1186/s40594-024-00510-611:1Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
    • (2023)Teacher Education to Integrate Computational Thinking into Elementary Science: A Design-Based Research StudyACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/361811523:4(1-36)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2023
    • (2022)Strengthening the coding skills of teachers in a low dropout Python MOOCAdvances in Mobile Learning Educational Research10.25082/AMLER.2022.01.0032:1(187-200)Online publication date: 2022
    • (2021)Frame Shifting as a Challenge to Integrating Computational Thinking in Secondary Mathematics EducationProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432400(390-396)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
    • (2021)SWOT Analysis of Two Different Designs of Summer Professional Development Institutes for K-8 CS Teachers2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637451(1-9)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2021
    • (2019)Improving Computer Science Instruction and Computer Use for African American Secondary School StudentsProceedings of the 2019 on Computers and People Research Conference10.1145/3322385.3322399(78-84)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2019
    • (2018)Computational Thinking in Secondary Education: Where does it fit? A systematic literary reviewInternational Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools10.21585/ijcses.v2i1.262:1(41-60)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2018
    • (2018)Learning Computational Thinking and scratch at distanceComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2017.09.02580:C(470-477)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2018
    • (2017)Historical App DevelopersMoving Students of Color from Consumers to Producers of Technology10.4018/978-1-5225-2005-4.ch005(85-112)Online publication date: 2017
    • (2017)Super LeadersOrganizational Culture and Behavior10.4018/978-1-5225-1913-3.ch058(1218-1244)Online publication date: 2017
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