Computational Thinking in the Elementary Classroom: More Than Just Computer Science!
In addition to teaching science to students in kindergarten through grade five, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to educate other teachers in my role as a professional development leader with STEMteachersNYC. This past summer, with grant funding from The Robin Hood Foundation and in collaboration with Cornell Tech, we launched a series of professional development workshops entitled “CTEC,” or “Computational Thinking in the Elementary Classroom.”
Often, when people hear the term “computational thinking (CT)” they immediately think of coding and other aspects of computer science. While it is true that coders and computer scientists employ computational thinking on a regular basis, it is also true that students — including those in the elementary grades — can benefit from utilizing computational thinking practices and approaches in all areas of their academic lives.
According to Barefoot Computing, there are six computational thinking concepts (logic, evaluation, algorithms, patterns, decomposition, and abstraction) and five computational thinking approaches (tinkering, creating, debugging, persevering, and collaborating). During a recent unit with my fifth grade scientists, entitled “Energy in an Ecosystem,” I decided to reflect on my teaching practice in order to identify the computational thinking concepts and approaches being implemented in my elementary science lab.
Performance Expectation 5-LS1–1 from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) states that fifth graders should be able to “support an argument that plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water.” Therefore, I begin the unit with a simple question: “What resources does a plant need to grow and survive?” As my fifth graders engage in the process of planning and carrying out an investigation that will answer this question, they employ several of the CT concepts and approaches, including:
- Logic — Before carrying out their investigation, students must make informed predictions regarding what a plant needs to grow and survive. They use their prior knowledge and previous interactions with plant life in order to make these predictions.
- Algorithms — As students design a procedure for their investigation, they determine the steps that they need to take and the order in which they will occur.
Eventually, students determine that a plant requires light, water, and carbon dioxide in order to carry out photosynthesis and “make its own food.”
Another NGSS Performance Expectation, 5-PS3–1, indicates that fifth graders should “use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.” To set students on the path of understanding food chains and food webs, they dissect owl pellets, which consist of undigested animal matter regurgitated by owls after eating their prey. After they remove bones and other material such as feathers from the rest of the owl pellet, fifth graders use a bone identification chart from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology to determine which organisms’ remains were removed from the pellets. Students sort bones into categories, including skulls, vertebrae, jaws, ribs, pelvic bones, and limbs, to figure out whether their owl had eaten rats, voles, mice, shrews, moles, or birds. Once again, CT concepts and approaches are at the forefront of our work, including:
- Collaborating — Students work in partnerships to dissect their owl pellets, sort the bones, and identify the organism(s).
- Decomposition — Students take the material found in the owl pellets and categorize them based on the organism’s anatomy. They take parts of the larger whole and place them into smaller groups in order to identify the animal(s) in their pellet.
- Abstraction — In the process of grouping bones, students come across pieces that they cannot identify. They must make the decision to ignore these pieces so that they can focus on using parts of the anatomy that they are able to identify.
After students have identified their owls’ prey, they begin creating a food chain model using SageModeler, a “free, web-based, and open-source software to engage students in systems thinking through designing, building, and revising models.” They begin by placing the barn owl and the prey found in the owl pellet in their diagram and use an arrow to show that the barn owl is getting its energy from its prey. Then, students use Kidtopia (a kid-safe search engine) to fill out their food chain, showing how energy originates with the sun and is transferred from organism to organism until it reaches the barn owl’s predator. Each food chain includes producers (like the plant from our first investigation) and consumers (like the barn owl), and some students include decomposers such as fungi as well.
Once each fifth grader has created their own food chain, they are tasked with incorporating their classmates’ food chains into their models to create a food web (two or more connected food chains). Students add producers, consumers, and decomposers from their peers’ food chain models while continuing to illustrate how energy is transferred using arrows and labels. CT concepts and approaches at work during this part of the unit include:
- Creating — Students create their own food chain models based on their classroom experiences and Internet research.
- Patterns — What patterns do students notice when comparing their food chains to their classmates’ food chains? What do their food chains have in common?
- Evaluation — Students must review their food chains and food webs to make sure they “make sense.” Are all producers receiving their energy from the sun? Are all consumers receiving their energy from other organisms? Are all necessary arrows included? Are all arrows pointing the right way?
As you can see, computational thinking is more than just coding and computer science. In addition to having relevance in my science classroom, the CT concepts and approaches can relate to all areas of the curriculum, from the arts to physical education. To learn more about what these concepts and approaches can look like in your classroom, become a member of our third cohort of teacher participants in “CTEC: Computational Thinking in the Elementary Classroom.” We look forward to seeing you there!
For more information, please visit the CTEC webpage: https://stemteachersnyc.org/computational-thinking-pd-for-k-5/
Special thanks to Kate Macaulay for sharing her owl pellet dissection resources and expertise, and special thanks to both Kate and Greg Benedis-Grab for being my CTEC co-leaders!
Resources
Barefoot Computing
https://www.barefootcomputing.org/
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
https://www.nextgenscience.org/
Cornell Tech
CTEC: Computational Thinking in the Elementary Classroom
https://stemteachersnyc.org/computational-thinking-pd-for-k-5/
Next Generation Science Standards
https://www.nextgenscience.org/
The Robin Hood Foundation
SageModeler
https://sagemodeler.concord.org/
STEMteachersNYC
