Intro to CS
A 14 week Introduction to Computer Science course.
This course is targeted to middle school grades 6-8 (ages 11-14 years). It is also written for teachers who may not have a Computer Science background, or who may be teaching an “Intro to Computer Science” course for the first time.
This course takes approximately 14 weeks to complete, spending about 1 week on each of the first 11 lessons, and 3 weeks for students to complete the final project at the end. Of course, teachers should feel free to customize the curriculum to meet individual school or district resources and timeframe.
![Space race image](https://pxt.azureedge.net/blob/ce157b871e8d7330375d8dc8ade57d7426259ef4/static/courses/csintro.jpg)
Download it
The entire course is also available as a download or as a book. Choose any of these formats:
Lesson structure
Each of the 12 lessons is structured in this format:
- Topic Introduction
- Unplugged Activity (30 min) - An offline game or activity that demonstrates the concept/topic
- micro:bit Activity (45-60 min) - An activity that everyone makes on their micro:bit that teaches the skills learned in this lesson.
- Project (60-120 min) - A prompt for an original project that each student will create to demonstrate their understanding of the skills and concepts covered in this lesson.
- Project Mods - Examples of additional things students can do to extend the project.
- Assessment - A project rubric and guidance for grading the project.
- Standards - A list of CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards and/or concepts covered by this lesson.
Course contents
Lessons
- Making
- Algorithms
- Variables
- Conditionals
- Iteration
- Review/Mini-Project
- Coordinate grid system
- Booleans
- Bits, bytes, and binary
- Radio
- Arrays
- Independent final project