I really like your strategy of embedding CS in non-CS courses to show its usefulness as a tool in a variety of science fields.  That is similar to the approach in our project (Agricultural Applications of Computer Science), where we have science/agriculture-related tasks that can be embedded in existing non-CS courses.  One big question that we've faced with the overwhelming majority of students having no prior programming experience, is how to prepare them to take on these challenges without having to derail their "real" content-area course while they learn programming fundamentals.  I'm curious how you approach this problem to make efficient use of the time that CS is "borrowing" from the science courses. 

Integrating CS and one discipline, let alone across multiple disciplines each with its own discipline-specific discourse, is challenging  - so kudos to the project team for taking on this ambitious task.  I'm curious about how you're measuring impact. Could you say a bit more about student outcomes?

I too like the idea of integrating CS in Non-CS courses.  How open were teachers to integrating?  Do you have, or are you looking at student outcomes when integrating CS in Non-CS courses? Additionally, the video discussed a school that offers extended learning to girls.  I'm curious to know what kind of recruiting techniques are utilized to get girls to join?

Thanks for sharing your work!

Great video showing the benefits of infusing CS into all science disciplines! I really loved the girls coding club as a way to expose an underrepresented group to this important field! There is certainly a need for more professional development in the areas of coding and computer science for science teachers!

Similar to some of the other comments, I'm also really impressed at the way the project has integrated CS into other STEM courses. The video mentioned that teachers were often learning alongside the students. I would be interested in hearing more about this aspect - how teachers reacted to being in that position, were there any strategies the team found particularly useful in supporting teachers in their learning, are there any suggestions the team can share about how to support teachers in a situation like this?

I really like your model for integrating CS into other STEM courses and  your work with both students and inservice teachers. Do you also have suggestions for the preparation of future mathematics and science teachers with regards to CS learning?  For example, what types of courses and/or curricular experiences would you recommend for biology or chemistry or mathematics preservice teachers-- to introduce them to CS concepts, practices, and resources and give them a solid foundation in CS so that they feel comfortable and confident integrating CS activities and learning into their courses? 

I will echo what others have noted about the impressive reach of integration of CS into non-CS disciplinary courses. I also want to applaud the focus on increased diversity in CS and the multi-dimensional approach to solutions including both in school and after school components. I am curious how the EdAdvance 20 year legacy of challenge-based education is informing the work of this current project, and what metrics are being used to measure impact(s).

In two weeks EdAdvance is hosting its 17th Challenge Based learning Expo Fest.  Students will share their products, services and other innovations with panels of expert judges in different categories including NGSS science, entrepreneurship, engineering, STEM+CS, technology, and digital media.  Over the years we have done a lot of research around what makes these projects have an impact on both students learning and student motivation.  Integrating these projects into mainstream classes and working on them for an entire year has some important impacts and we've learned several things.  First, by putting the projects into mainstream classes we are getting to a much wider population than if we just put these projects in electives or in classes that are tracked or labeled honors.  In fact, these projects tend to impact the non-honors kids more because the honors students usually elect to take AP classes by sophomore year and AP teachers do not (or say they cannot) integrate this type of learning into their classes because the pressure is on to cover an extreme amount of content.  They have no time to incorporate challenge based learning.  (Seems counterintuitive, right?) To get CS in the hands and classes of more students we knew that putting it into mainstream science courses that students need to take to fulfill graduation requirements we would hit a larger segment of the population, many of whom would not usually elect to take a CS class.  The hope is that this exposure to CS in the context of science will encourage them to take a CS course.  We also know that students feel very invested in their challenge projects because they go so deep into them and work on them over the course of several months.  They really get to know the science or content behind the project and their learning becomes natural because they are doing the investigating to solve their problems, not because the teacher tells them.  We've also found that our particular challenge gets students that may not have much interest in science or STEM at all to still be engaged because there are so many facets of the project.  A STEM+CS project that comes to compete at our Expo Fest has several deliverables to the competition.  Besides the prototype of the innovation (an app, a product, etc) the project needs a full developed website with written documentation of the research and lab reports.  The team needs to create a marketing plan and develops a social media presence for their project.  Teams are required to reach out to a mentor with expertise in some aspect of their project.  At Expo the students give a 3-5 minute "Shark Tank" like Live Pitch to a panel of judges.  They also design and run a trade-show type booth at Expo Fest . This means that students that are great writers may work on the website and are engaged in that part of the project.  Great public speakers and presenters work on their pitch.  Technically savvy students work on back end design of the website.  Creative types design a logo and work on the social media campaign.  This project naturally lets students play to their strengths.  Of course all students are involved in the science and CS aspects of the class, but when it gets time to really dig deep into the project the students have voice and choice in their roles and we know that is very important.  We measure impact in a few ways.  First we look deeply at the projects and documentation students bring to Expo to see how deep they went with their learning.  Students also complete some surveys that get at their development of 21st Century skills based on an Octoskills survey from Europe.  We also have a STEM career/college interest survey that we use.  

I came late to the showcase and viewed all of the projects in the CS/STEM category today.  The video and written explanations are very good and very encouraging.   I know the definition of CS has evolved considerable in the last 30 years, and that integrating CS into STEM really means incorporating only the most appropriate parts.  What are the  elements of CS you felt were essential in the student activities/projects?  Programming?  Computation?  Structure problem solving?   You give examples of student work but what  elements typical of CS were emphasized such as collaboration, testing and analysis, presentation and explanation?  

I can imagine how deeply involved students are since they focus on something of interest and draw upon CS and STEM to develop the project.  I had assumed these were group projects but one of the answers seemed to indicate these are individual projects. There are good reasons for either.  I’d be curious about which you use and why.