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By the time students reach this lesson, they should already have plenty of practice using repeat loops, so now it's time to mix things up.

While loops are loops that continue to repeat commands while a condition is met. While loops are used when the programmer doesn't know the exact number of times commands need to be repeated but does know what condition needs to be true in order for the loop to continue repeating. For example, students will be working to fill holes and dig dirt in Farmer. They will not know the size of the holes or the height of the mountains of dirt, but the students will know they need to keep filling the holes and digging the dirt as long as the ground is not flat.

As your students continue to deepen their knowledge of loops, they will come across problems where a command needs to be repeated, but it is unknown how many times it needs to be repeated. This is where while loops come in. In today's lesson, students will develop a beginner's understanding of condition-based loops and also expand their knowledge of loops in general.

Students will be able to:
- distinguish between loops that repeat a fixed number of times and loops that repeat as long as a condition is true.
- use a while loop to create programs that can solve problems with unknown values.

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

Communication is an art. It involves listening and speaking as well as reading and writing clearly and creatively. Technology provides creative opportunities for expressing yourself digitally.

These Quests provide opportunities to learn about different software applications for creating digital objects or artifacts to communicate your ideas in new and creative ways.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

When you have completed this activity you will:​

1. know how to use different media tools to communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively [Creative Communicator]

2. be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of different media tools [Creative Communicator]

3. know how to select an appropriate technology tool to meet different types of communication [Creative Communicator, Knowledge Constructor]

4. understand how to use and remix several different technology tools responsibly to communicate information [Empowered Learner, Creative Communicator]

5. be able to use a design process to plan and create digital artifacts [Innovative Designer]

Carrie Anne is going to start our overview of the fundamental building blocks of programming languages. We’ll start by creating small programs for our very own video game to show how statements and functions work. We aren’t going to code in a specific language, but we’ll show you how conditional statements like IF and ELSE statements, WHILE loops, and FOR loops control the flow of programs in nearly all languages, and then we’ll finish by packaging up these instructions into functions that can be called by our game to perform more and more complex actions.

In this lesson, students practice using and creating functions with parameters. Students learn that writing functions with parameters can generalize solutions to problems even further. Especially in situations where you feel like you are about to duplicate some code with only a few changes to some numbers, that is a good time to write a function that accepts parameters. In the second half of the lesson, students make a series of modifications to a program that creates an “Under the Sea” scene by adding parameters to functions to more easily add variation to the scene. Lastly, students are introduced to App Lab’s random number functions to supply random values to function calls so the scene looks a little different every time the program runs.

Students will be able to:
- write functions with parameters to generalize a solution instead of duplicating code.
- identify appropriate situations for creating a function with parameters.
- use random numbers as inputs to function calls for the purpose of testing.
- add parameters to a function in an existing piece of code to generalize its behavior.

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

Students will review a court case and case study to determine what is protected and what may not be. 

Elonis v. the United States provides the foundation for a debate on what forms of expression on social media are and are not protected by the First Amendment — and the blurry line in-between.

To access this free resource, you will need a free account. 

We’re going to begin with computer networks, and how they grew from small groups of connected computers on LAN networks to eventually larger worldwide networks like the ARPANET and even the Internet we know today.

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.

The class is introduced to the Game Lab, the programming environment for this unit, and begins to use it to position shapes on the screen. The lesson covers the basics of sequencing and debugging, as well as a few simple commands. At the end of the lesson, the class creates an online version of the image they designed in the previous lesson.

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

Computers have lots of different parts and each has a special job.

Some will be inside the computer and others will be outside. Some parts are attached by wires and others are wireless.

The parts that make up a computer are called "hardware." Programs which tell a computer what to do are called "software." The hardware needs the software to tell it what to do.

Students will identify computer parts in a clickable activity as well as a game.

Social media gives us a chance to choose how we present ourselves to the world. We can snap and share a picture in the moment or carefully stage photos and select only the ones we think are best. When students reflect on these choices, they can better understand the self they are presenting and the self they aim to be.

Students will be able to:

• Describe how their curated self may or may not represent their real self.

• Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of representing different parts of their real self online.

• Create an avatar that represents both their real and curated selves.

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

Abby Brown loves to help kids have fun while learning! In this segment, Abby teaches kids that robots are used to do jobs like cleaning, homework, lifting heavy objects and keeping people safe.

In this cumulative project for Chapter 1, the class plans for and develops an interactive greeting card using all of the programming techniques they've learned to this point.

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

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.