Computer Science

List of 5 items.

• Grade 5: Creative Computing

  This course builds on the coding concepts and skills learned in the Lower School. Students will expand their capacity to work with fundamental programming concepts like variables, conditional statements, and loops. Computational concepts and skills will be applied to engaging, creative projects in the areas of digital fabrication, artificial intelligence, and physical computing. Students will have opportunities to explore and generate their project ideas both individually and collaboratively.

• Grade 6: Coding

  All Grade 6 and Grade 8 students engage in two programming-intensive units in their science classes throughout the academic school year. During the unit, students meet four times a week.

  The Grade 6 course helps develop students’ programming skills and habits through a study of 3D animation using Alice 3, as well as design thinking through physical computing using circuits and Arduinos.

• Grade 7: Robotics

  This elective course offers students an opportunity to continue their work in computer science. Students are introduced to the field of robotics and study the role it plays in present-day life. Students design and build objects that interact with the physical world through sensors, motors and LEDs. Project work forms a major part of the course, and in the spring, students participate in a citywide robotics event.

• Grade 8: Coding

  As part of an interdisciplinary partnership with the Science Department, all Grade 6 to 8 students engage in two programming-intensive units in their science classes throughout the academic school year. During the unit, students meet four times a week.

   

  In the Grade 8 course, students continue to learn the fundamentals of programming by creating art using Processing, a Java-based open-source language, and hone their design skills in a web development unit using HTML and CSS. Using the knowledge and skills they acquire from these units, students develop culminating projects integrated with their most recent science units.

• Grade 8: Physical Computing

  Physical Computing studies microcontroller technology and its presence in everyday technologies. Students will work with an assortment of microcontrollers to design, program and construct smart devices that interact with the environment. Microcontrollers, sensors, LEDs, buzzers and actuators will be embedded into physical objects—some wearable, others stationary—that have specific purposes and functions. Programming, engineering and making are essential elements of this course.