Find Resources

Trailblazers

Trailblazers is a fun pencil and paper activity where students write simple instructions for another student to navigate a maze. The instructions are drawn on the maze as commands (if square is red, turn right, etc.) and then students exchange papers to navigate the maze following only the commands. This is a preliminary activity for the Bumper Turtles coding activity.

Scientific Practices and Computational Thinking in Modeling & Simulation

This document is a handout used to reflect on the scientific practices and computational thinking involved in a Project GUTS module or lesson.

Getting Unstuck: Karen Brennan's "8 for 8"

This 8:13 minute video gives techniques for facilitating classrooms of students who are working on projects.

The Giraffe and the Platypus

This is an activity that allows teachers in a workshop to experience and explore the equity issue involved in differences in background knowledge of students.

Graphic from video showing people wearing jeans

Data and Data Analysis video

A very short video (0.36) introducing the concepts of data and data analysis from StarLogo Nova models.

Interview with Hal Scheintaub

Teachers with GUTS interviewed Hal Scheintaub and demo of StarLogo Nova models created by his students on August 2, 2017.

Kinesthetic Flower Turtles Activity

This activity is an extension to the CS in Science Module 1, Lesson 2, between activity 1 and activity 2. It is a kinesthetic activity to show how the agents behave according to a certain program. It can replace the activity that is there or be used as an extension or add on to the listed activities.

Maze

Students struggle understanding proportional relationships and scaling shapes. This module allows students to scale one shape and transfer it to 3 different environments. Students will create a game online (SL Nova) and program a Sphero (robot) while learning the math standards.

Decoding a Model - Dissolving of NaCl in Water

Start of a lesson on dissolving a solid in water by decoding on a model.

Debugging Guide

A short guide for identifying and fixing common bugs in StarLogo Nova 2.0.

Code Blocks for CS in Science Module 3 - Rabbits and Grass Ecosystems Model

This is a worksheet to use while decoding the Rabbits and Grass Ecosystems Model - CS in Science, Module 3. Select the relevant link below, for StarLogo Nova 1.0 (flash version) or StarLogo Nova 2.0 (HTML5/JavaScript version).

Troubleshooting Guide

A brief guide to Troubleshooting for teachers and facilitators -- how to get StarLogo Nova to work correctly.

Debugging Strategies - a guide for teachers and facilitators

Some tricks or strategies to help students identify problems in their code.

Defensive Programming Practices

A brief guide for teachers and facilitators to help students develop programming practices to keep them out of trouble.

Facilitating Student Debugging & Problem Solving

A guide for teachers and facilitators, to encourage collaboration, communication, and persistence in problem solving.

Decoding Guide

Strategies for teaching students to read code to understand how a program or model works.

Teaching Equity Resources

Here are links to the resources used in CS in Science workshops to discuss equity in computer science.

Project GUTS teacher & facilitator guides

These guides are aimed at helping teachers or workshop facilitators help their students or participants be independent learners while working with computer models. They are a work in progress - final versions will be uploaded soon. Please feel free to point out any corrections or additions in a discussion thread -- Thanks!

What is a Complex Adaptive System?

A brief explanation of the characteristics of Complex Adaptive Systems, with a few examples of activities that demonstrate these characteristics.

Ecosystems as Complex Adaptive Systems

Background information on ecosystems for teachers' use in CS in Science, Module 3 (Ecosystems)

Search for "[keyword]" across the whole site.