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This sample activity is a collaboration between Cartoon Network and CS First. Students will tell a story using the characters from “The Amazing World of Gumball". This activity introduces students to computer science and the programming language Scratch. Students will use different Scratch blocks to create their own unique stories.

Gumball’s Coding Adventure is a simple activity designed to be completed within 45-75 minutes. 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. 

YouTube has been around for over a decade now, and it dominates as the top place for video content. Because of that, it’s way more of a business now than anyone could have imagined. The advertising world refers to many of the stars on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms as influencers, because they have their own, home-grown fanbase that they have been interacting with for years. To capitalize on that fanbase, companies pay these influencers to promote their product or service. Watch the latest Above the Noise video to find out whether you can trust what's on YouTube and what are the rules about influencers advertising products in their videos. This video comes with a student handout that helps guide the discussion of this activity.

Make a coded message called a scytale message to send to a friend. This activity from Zoom focuses on your ability to follow directions and requires a cylinder. This learning activity can be used during a lesson on encryption.

To kick off the app design project, the class organizes into teams and starts exploring app topics. Several example socially impactful apps serve as inspiration for the project.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Programming--sometimes referred to as coding--is a nuts and bolts activity for computer scientists. While this chapter won't teach you how to program (we've given some links to sites that can do this in the introduction), we are going to look at what a programming language is, and how computer scientists breathe life into a language. From a programmer's point of view, they type some instructions, and the computer follows them. But how does the computer know what to do? Bear in mind that you might be using one of the many languages such as Python, Java, Scratch, Basic or C#, yet computers only have the hardware to follow instructions in one language: a very simple "machine code" that is difficult for humans to read and write. Then if you invent a new programming language, how do you tell the computer how to use it?

In this chapter, we'll look at what happens when you write and run a program, and how this affects the way that you distribute the program for others to use.

Not all hackers are malicious cybercriminals intent on stealing your data (these people are known as Black Hats). There are also White Hats, who hunt for bugs, close security holes, and perform security evaluations for companies. And there are a lot of different motivations for hackers.

Students, working with a partner or team will brainstorm physical devices they wish to prototype. Students have the option to design a new creation or recreate a device they have found in the "real world". Students will complete a planning guide to determine the resources (physical and digital) they will need to create their prototype. Students will design a user interface (typically an app or circuit board) that may control some output device (like a circuit board). It will be necessary for students to develop pseudocode or algorithms to aid in the coding process. Students will need to complete the problem-solving process during this lesson plan which will include testing a revising the prototype.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Networks are everywhere in modern society: roads, wires, water and gas pipes all connect one place to another. Computers are built of networks at many levels, from the microscopic connections between transistors in a chip to the cables and satellites that link the internet around the world. People who build networks often need to work out the most efficient way to make connections, which can be a difficult problem.

This puzzle shows students the decisions involved in linking a network between houses in a muddy city. It can lead to a discussion of minimal spanning tree algorithms for optimizing networks.

This lesson, to be used with Underground Railroad: The William Still Story, introduces students to the benefits of recording history. However, they also learn the dangers of sharing information publicly. Social media is explored as an effective, but a sometimes dangerous messaging tool.

Building on the concept of repeating instructions from "My Loopy Robotic Friends," this stage will have students using loops to get to the acorn more efficiently on Code.org.

Students will be able to:
- Construct a program using structures that repeat areas of code.
- Improve existing code by finding areas of repetition and moving them into looping structures.

Note: You must create a free account to access this and use this resource. 

Life is sweet! It is especially sweet when you have all of the tools right at your fingertips to complete a project thus making you more productive!

Imagine using a program at school for typing a paper; however, at home, you do not have the software. Panic sets in! How are you possibly going to finish your assignment in the time your teacher has given without having the same software at home? Well, with a productivity suite that is FREE and online (such as Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive), you can get your work done in the comfort of your own home, PLUS you can collaborate on work, online, and with others! 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
When you have completed this activity you will:

- understand how to use a word processing application [Empowered Learner]
 
- know how to use advanced word processing features  [Creative Communicator]
 
- know how to share documents with others [Digital Citizen]
 
- know how to collaborate with others [Global Collaborator]

Welcome to Crash Course Computer Science! This video will take a look at computing’s origins because even though our digital computers are relatively new, the need for computation is not.

Students consider that while they are enjoying their favorite websites they may encounter messages from other kids that can make them feel angry, hurt, sad, or fearful. They explore ways to handle cyberbullying and how to respond in the face of upsetting language online. Students discuss all the ways they use technology for communication and explore the similarities and differences between in-person and online communication. Students then brainstorm ways to respond to cyberbullying.

This lesson will provide students with the tools that they need to handle cyberbullying if they are ever in the situation of having someone negatively responds to their online postings. Students may not ever have the misfortune of experiencing cyberbullying, but they should understand what it is so that they can spot it online. Students will learn how to identify cyberbullying and what steps they should take to make it stop. This may become helpful in later puzzles when students have the opportunity to share their work.

Students will be able to:
- empathize with those who have received mean and hurtful messages.
- judge what it means to cross the line from harmless to harmful communication online.
-generate solutions for dealing with cyberbullying.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Santa’s Dirty Socks

This activity introduces the idea of “divide and conquer” using a fictitious but serious problem – a pair of dirty socks have accidentally been wrapped in one of the presents that Santa is about to deliver, and he needs to figure out which one to avoid a child getting a nasty surprise.

You can either play the video (linked in the activity) or download the PDF of the book (see the PDF files in the link to the activity) to read aloud or give to students.

The solution in the story points out that when there are 1024 boxes to test, instead of having to open all of them until the socks are found, one half can be eliminated at a time, and repeatedly halving the problem very quickly narrows it down to one box (the size of the problem starts at 1024, then with one weighing there are 512 boxes, then 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1.) This idea comes up frequently in the design of fast computer algorithms.

So you may have heard of Moore's Law and while it isn't truly a law it has pretty closely estimated a trend we've seen in the advancement of computing technologies. Moore's Law states that we'll see approximately a 2x increase in transistors in the same space every two years, and while this may not be true for much longer, it has dictated the advancements we've seen since the introduction of transistors in the mid-1950s. So today we're going to talk about those improvements in hardware that made this possible - starting with the third generation of computing and integrated circuits (or ICs) and printed circuit boards (or PCBs). But as these technologies advanced a newer manufacturing process would bring us to the nanoscale manufacturing we have today - photolithography.

This lesson focuses on the economic and consumer concerns around apps and websites that collect and track data about you in exchange for providing you a service free of cost. Often the quality of the service itself is dependent on having access to data about many people and their behavior. The main takeaway of the lesson is that students should be more informed consumers of the technology around them. They should be able to explain some of the trade-offs between maintaining personal privacy and using innovative software free of cost.

Students will be able to:
- explain how and why personal data is exchanged for the use of free software.
- explain some of the privacy and economic tradeoffs involved in the collection and use of personal data.
- describe the ways and reasons organizations collect information about individuals.
- read and critically evaluate a data privacy policy.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

The lesson elements in this module teach students about the privacy principle “There is no anonymity on the Internet”. They are designed to be independent and flexible, so you can incorporate them into any size lesson plan. Student resources are available at https://teachingprivacy.org/theres-no-anonymity/.

Summary of Learning Objectives: Students can explain (in general terms) how data tracked by online services can be used to identify them; students can use tools and techniques to reduce the effectiveness of tracking.

Target Age: High school, college undergraduate.

Learning objectives:

1. Students can explain (in general terms) how data aggregation, data mining, and inference are carried out and can give examples of how these techniques can be used to match “anonymous” users to their real identities.
2. Students can explain what online behavioral tracking is, can give examples of what types of information can be gathered about them, and can give examples of how personal devices can be used to track and collect that information.
3. Students can give examples of what types of information can still be collected by websites when they are using their browser’s “private browsing” or “incognito” mode.
4. Students can explain how the amount and type of information available about them online affects the likelihood that someone can connect their online personas with their offline identities.
5. Students can give examples of effective tools and techniques that reduce the ability of websites, apps, and services to track their online behavior, explain (in general terms) how they work, and enumerate some of their limitations.

In this media-rich lesson plan, students explore how to keep their digital lives safe, spot cyber scams, and learn the basics of coding from NOVA Labs. The lesson begins with students watching the Cybersecurity 101 video and discussing the online safety measures that they currently take. Next, students make predictions about online safety best practices, complete the Level 1 challenges of the NOVA Cybersecurity Lab, and compare the best practices from the game with their predictions. Students reconvene for direct instruction on the best practices and key computer science terms and then finish the Cybersecurity Lab game. Finally, students complete the video quizzes with short-response discussion questions and can work on the Cybersecurity stories as homework reading assignments.

Students continue to practice working with arrays and are introduced to a new user interface element, the canvas. The canvas includes commands for drawing simple geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, lines) and also triggers mouse and key events like any other user interface element. Over the course of the lesson, students combine these features to make an app that allows a user to draw an image while recording every dot drawn on the canvas in an array. By processing this array in different ways, the app will allow students to redraw their image in different styles, like random, spray paint, and sketching. Along the way, students use their knowledge of functions with return values to make code which is easy to manage and reuse.

Students will be able to:
- programmatically control the canvas element in response to user interactions.
- maintain a dynamically generated array through the running of a program in order to record and reuse user input.
- use nested loops within a program to repeat a command on the same array index multiple times.
- perform variable arithmetic within an array index to access items in an array by their relative position.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Technology use isn't always a distraction, but there are definitely times when it's best to keep devices away. Help students learn when it's appropriate to use technology and when it's not -- and practice making family rules for device-free time at home.

Students will be able to:

• Recognize the ways in which digital devices can be distracting.

• Identify how they feel when others are distracted by their devices.

• Identify ideal device-free moments for themselves and others.

Users will need to create a free account to access this resource. 

Excelsior! Inspired by READY JET GO!, in this activity, children will be challenged to use PBS KIDS ScratchJr to create projects where they blast off and explore our solar system.

Children will learn how to use the PBS KIDS ScratchJr programming blocks to make animated stories and interactive projects. They will explore coding and computational thinking practices as they utilize technology as a tool for creativity, expression, and learning with the PBS KIDS ScratchJr app.

This lesson introduces the formal problem-solving process that the class will use over the course of the year: Define - Prepare - Try - Reflect. The class relates these steps to the aluminum boat problem from the previous lesson, then a problem they are good at solving, then a problem they want to improve at solving. At the end of the lesson, the class collects a list of generally useful strategies for each step of the process to put on posters that will be used throughout the unit and year.

Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.

Do your students have their own online accounts like email or social media? What about login for school computers? If so, they might have to pick passwords. Have you ever had trouble creating (and forgetting) good passwords? This fun lesson plan involves a guessing game that can teach your students how to make their passwords harder to guess. Learn how to keep your accounts safe!

You will need to create a free account to access the material, however, it has direct integration with Google Classroom and even provides Google Classroom resources such as a quiz and student worksheet.

The internet is full of catchy headlines and outrageous images, all to make us curious and get our attention. But kids don't usually realize: What you click on isn't always what you get. Show your students the best ways to avoid clickbait online.

• Define "the curiosity gap."
• Explain how clickbait uses the curiosity gap to get your attention.
• Use strategies for avoiding clickbait.

Users will need to create a free account to access this resource.

Explore many of the ups and downs of digital photography by watching this animated video from RUFF RUFFMAN: HUMBLE MEDIA GENIUS. The much-loved character Ruff Ruffman is back, offering advice about sharing photographs and guiding students on the appropriate use of this twenty-first-century skill. This resource is part of the RUFF RUFFMAN: HUMBLE MEDIA GENIUS Collection. This video comes with a student guide that details the benefits and privacy issues of digital photos. This video can be played to introduce a lesson on identifying, demonstrating, and applying personal safe use of digital devices.