Have you ever had a complex problem that you needed to solve? This could be a math problem, science experiment, an essay you need to write, and coding and game design. It could even be as simple as planning the best route to school or baking your favorite cookies!
Computational thinking can be used to take a complex problem, understand what the problem is and develop possible solutions to solve or explain it.
Students will complete Quests to learn about the four stages of computational thinking:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
When you have completed this activity you will:
In Art, students create animations, interactive artwork, photograph filters, and other exciting, artistic projects.
Art is a complete theme designed to be completed over eight, 45-75 minute, sessions. For each Activity, students will watch a series of videos and create one coding project with opportunities to personalize their work using “Add-Ons”, which are mini-coding challenges that build on top of the core project.
Be sure to review the Materials tab for the lesson plan, starter guide, and more.
Users will need a Google account to use this resource.
In Game Design, students learn basic video game coding concepts by making different types of games, including racing, platform, launching, and more!
Game Design is a complete theme designed to be completed over eight, 45-75 minute, sessions. For each activity, students will watch a series of videos and create one coding project with opportunities to personalize their work using “Add-Ons”, which are mini-coding challenges that build on top of the core project.
Students will plan, design, and create a physical prototype using block programming to control simple wire circuits using cheap and easily found materials.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
By combining the Draw Loop and the Counter Pattern, the class writes programs that move sprites across the screen, as well as animate other sprite properties.
After a brief review of how the counter pattern is used to move sprites, the class is introduced to the properties that set velocity and rotation speed directly. As they use these new properties in different ways, they build up the skills they need to create a basic side scroller game.
This lesson introduces the draw loop, one of the core programming paradigms in the Game Lab. The class combines the draw loop with random numbers to manipulate some simple animations with dots and then with sprites. Afterward, everyone uses what they learned to update the sprite scene from the previous lesson.
This lesson covers common issues that arise when designing web pages in HTML to include the use of intellectual property. The class will correct errors in a sequence of increasingly complex web pages found on Code Studio and learn the importance of comments (narratives), whitespace, and indentation as tools for making web pages easier to read.
This lesson introduces CSS as a way to style elements on the page. The class learns the basic syntax for CSS rule-sets and then explores properties that impact HTML text elements. Finally, everyone applies text styles to their personal websites.
This lesson covers classes and custom colors. The class first learns how to specify custom colors using RGB (red, green, blue) values, then applies these colors to a new Four Seasons web page, which uses CSS classes. Using classes, the class adds more styles to the Four Seasons web page, then uses them to style their personal websites.
In the last few days of the unit, the class finalizes their personal websites, working with peers to get feedback. Then, the students will review the rubric and put the finishing touches on the site. To cap off the unit, everyone shares their projects and how they were developed.
This lesson covers hyperlinks, which allow web developers to connect pages together into one website. The class will link together all the previous pages into one project and create navigation bars for each page before publishing the entire site to the Web.
This lesson continues the introduction to CSS style properties, this time focusing more on non-text elements. The class begins by investigating and modifying the new CSS styles on a "Desserts of the World" page. Afterward, everyone applies this new knowledge to their personal websites.
