Computer Science

Daylight Data: Deepening Earth Systems Understanding with CODAP Plugins

Cadre-Admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:15:39 +0000

Daylight Data: Deepening Earth Systems Understanding with CODAP Plugins

Students benefit from having opportunities to explore extensive, complex datasets using technology tools that are intuitive and accessible. Likewise, middle school teachers require convenient access to captivating datasets, supportive resources, and classroom-appropriate software. We developed two CODAP (Common Online Data Analysis Platform) plugins that allow students to engage with data about their daily lives, build their data fluency, and answer questions about Earth’s systems. These plugins support the three-dimensional learning approach central to the NGSS. Students employ science and engineering practices (analyzing and interpreting data and using mathematics and computational thinking), gain insight into disciplinary core ideas related to energy flow from the sun and the resulting uneven heating of the Earth, and explore crosscutting concepts (patterns and cause and effect). This article introduces the Day Length plugin with three different lesson entry points that provide students with autonomy and help them build independence in developing data visualizations. The NASA plugin can be used in similar ways and includes a wider array of real-time data.

Perez, L., Reichsman, F., Salisbury, S., Chin, C., & Mcintyre, C. (2025). Daylight data: Deepening Earth systems understanding with CODAP plugins. Science Scope, 48(5), 10–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/08872376.2025.2537627

Cadre-Admin Mon, 09/22/2025 - 10:15

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08872376.2025.2537627

Consortium of School Networking CoSN 2026 Annual Conference, Chicago, IL

Cadre-Admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Consortium of School Networking CoSN 2026 Annual Conference, Chicago, IL

Event Date

Mon, 04/13/2026 - 12:00am EDT to Wed, 04/15/2026 - 12:00am EDT

Cadre-Admin Fri, 09/05/2025 - 12:00

Event Description

To learn more, visit https://www.cosn.org/cosn2026/.

Sponsoring Organization

Consortium of School Networking (CoSN)

Conference on Computer Supported Education 18th International CSEDU Conference; Benidorm, Spain

Cadre-Admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 15:58:06 +0000

Conference on Computer Supported Education 18th International CSEDU Conference; Benidorm, Spain

Event Date

Mon, 05/18/2026 - 12:00am EDT to Wed, 05/20/2026 - 12:00am EDT

Cadre-Admin Fri, 09/05/2025 - 11:58

Event Description

To learn more, visit https://csedu.scitevents.org/.

Computer-Using Educators Spring CUE 2026 National Conference; Palm Springs, CA

Cadre-Admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 14:34:31 +0000

Computer-Using Educators Spring CUE 2026 National Conference; Palm Springs, CA

Event Date

Thu, 03/19/2026 - 12:00am EDT to Sat, 03/21/2026 - 12:00am EDT

Cadre-Admin Fri, 09/05/2025 - 10:34

Event Description

To learn more, visit https://joincalie.org/events/spring-calie-2026/.

Sponsoring Organization

Computer-Using Educators (CUE)

Association for Computing Machinery 2026 SIGCSE Technical Symposium; St. Louis, MO

Cadre-Admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 14:30:45 +0000

Association for Computing Machinery 2026 SIGCSE Technical Symposium; St. Louis, MO

Event Date

Wed, 02/18/2026 - 12:00am EST to Sat, 02/21/2026 - 12:00am EST

Cadre-Admin Fri, 09/05/2025 - 10:30

Event Description

To learn more, visit https://sigcse2026.sigcse.org/.

Sponsoring Organization

Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE)

Early Childhood Teachers’ Use of Asset-based Computational Thinking Pedagogy: Centering Students’ Expertise and Life Experiences

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:52:15 +0000

Early Childhood Teachers’ Use of Asset-based Computational Thinking Pedagogy: Centering Students’ Expertise and Life Experiences

Computational thinking (CT) is central to computer science, yet there is a gap in the literature on how CT emerges and develops in early childhood especially for children from historically marginalized communities. Yet, lack of access to computational materials and effective instruction can create inequities that have lasting effects on young children (Chaudry, et al., 2017). To alleviate the pervasiveness of such inequities and remedy the “pedagogical dominance of Whiteness” (Baines et al., 2018, p. 10), asset-based computer science CS pedagogies and culturally relevant approaches are needed (Madkins et al., 2019). Understanding how teachers provide asset-based, culturally responsive opportunities for CT in early childhood classrooms remains largely unknown. The purpose of this paper is to share a subset of findings from a qualitative, ethnographic study that explored the ways in which early childhood teachers (ECT) learned and implemented CT using asset-based pedagogies. The research question addressed is: In what ways do ECT use asset-based pedagogies while implementing CT in their classrooms?

Assaf, L. C. & Justice, S. (2024, April 12). Early childhood teachers’ use of asset-based computational thinking pedagogy: Centering students’ expertise and life experiences. [Conference session]. American Educational Research Association, Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, United States. http://bit.ly/4mft8kA

Cadre-Admin Wed, 08/06/2025 - 16:52

https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/wp.txstate.edu/dist/5/2993/files/2024/07/Assaf-Ju…

Asset-based Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Classrooms: Centering Students’ Expertise in a Community of Learners

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:45:12 +0000

Asset-based Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Classrooms: Centering Students’ Expertise in a Community of Learners

Computational thinking (CT) is central to computer science, yet there is a gap in the literature on the best ways to implement CT in early childhood classrooms. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how early childhood teachers enacted asset-based pedagogies while implementing CT in their classrooms. We followed a group of 28 early childhood educators who began with a summer institute and then participated in multiple professional learning activities over one year. Examining a subset of the larger group, findings illustrate how teachers intentionally created learning communities that empowered students and utilized their expertise to guide CT learning in their classrooms. Teachers recognized that asset-based approaches to CT instruction empowered not just their students but also themselves. By using asset-based CT pedagogies, early childhood teachers can better support students from marginalized communities, reducing achievement gaps and inequities in digital learning.

Assaf, L. C. & Justice, S. B. (2024). Asset-based computational thinking in early childhood classrooms: Centering students’ expertise in a community of learners. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01825-3

Cadre-Admin Wed, 08/06/2025 - 16:45

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-024-01825-3

Expressive STEM Storymaking: Art, Literacy, and Creative Computing

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:35:33 +0000

Expressive STEM Storymaking: Art, Literacy, and Creative Computing

This chapter features intersections of art, literacy, and creative computing. As a component of STEAM, creative computing augments story creation, or storymaking (Buganza et al., 2023; Compton & Thompson, 2018), prompting learners to explore expressive meaning making as collective interactions with texts. To signify a way of teaching that supports such learning activities, we propose expressive STEM as a design principle, illustrated here with examples from an elementary school and a preservice art education program in Texas, USA. Principles of expressive STEM storymaking drawn from these examples and from our teaching and research are offered in the chapter’s conclusion.

Justice, S. B. & Assaf, L. C. (2025). Expressive STEM storymaking: Art, literacy, and creative computing. In A. Lai & Y. Cooper (Eds.) STEAM Education: Intersections and Thresholds. Brill-Sense. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004714748_014

Cadre-Admin Wed, 08/06/2025 - 16:35

https://brill.com/display/book/9789004714748/BP000025.xml

Fostering Mathematics Engagement Through Citizen Science

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 18:00:11 +0000

Fostering Mathematics Engagement Through Citizen Science

Teach mathematics and science using materials for the weather-focused Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, & Snow Network project.

Scharen, D. R., McInerney, E., Sachs, L. H., Hayes, M. L., & Smith, P. S. (2025). Fostering mathematics engagement through citizen science. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, 118(6), 425–436. https://doi.org/10.5951/MTLT.2024.0236

Cadre-Admin Wed, 07/30/2025 - 14:00

https://pubs.nctm.org/view/journals/mtlt/118/6/article-p425.xml

Citizen Science in the Elementary Classroom: Going Beyond Data Collection

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 17:54:03 +0000

Citizen Science in the Elementary Classroom: Going Beyond Data Collection

This article portrays how citizen science (CS) projects can be integrated into elementary classrooms to enhance students’ sensemaking skills and connect to real-world science problems. For the last several years, we have been involved in a study, Teacher Learning for Effective School-Based Citizen Science (TL4CS), that developed materials for elementary school teachers to engage their students in data collection, analysis, and interpretation for two existing CS projects: Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and the Lost Ladybug Project (LLP). After piloting the TL4CS materials for two years, two teachers, Penny and Amy, share the ways they used the materials to create rich sensemaking experiences for their students. Penny used our TL4CS CoCoRaHS materials to make connections between their daily precipitation data and local weather phenomena, patterns in ecosystems, and student-created graphs. Amy used our TL4CS LLP materials to explore students’ questions about human impact on animals’ habitats and discover the importance of biodiversity in ecosystems. As demonstrated by Penny’s and Amy’s stories, the TL4CS materials can transform mere data collection for CS projects into opportunities for real-world connections and sensemaking in science classrooms.

McGowan, J. K., Sachs, L., Bruce, A., Scharen, D. R., Hayes, M., & Smith, P. S. (2025). Citizen science in the elementary classroom: Going beyond data collection. Science and Children, 62(4), 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00368148.2025.2504125

Cadre-Admin Wed, 07/30/2025 - 13:54

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00368148.2025.2504125