List of 4 items.

• 5th – CSE 5: Creative Problem Solving

  The goal of this course is for students to become more observant of their environment and see themselves as changemakers who can identify and solve many types of problems. The iterative Design Thinking Process will provide students with a framework for creatively solving a problem and communicating their ideas. Through individual and collaborative projects and puzzles, students will develop empathy by becoming more attentive to the needs of others to engineer solutions that directly address the challenge. This class focuses on problem-solving strategies and is an introduction to the tools and materials in the designLab that are used for low-fidelity prototyping as well as basic block and text-based code.

• 6th – CSE 6: Physical Design for Social Impact

  The goal of this course is to engage students in the Design Thinking Process as they learn physical skills related to fabrication and prototyping so that they may identify as designers and engineers. Students practice brainstorming and research as they develop problem-solving skills related to specific tools and challenges. Lessons focus on the tools and methods necessary for specific project development. These tools become vehicles for student imagination as they design and build their own products at two distinct points in the year. These designs rely on knowledge of core content to solve real-world design challenges for fundraising. Students will learn to create business plans that will maximize their philanthropic contributions to their cause.

• 7th – CSE 7: Computing & AI Ethics

  This course provides an engaging introduction to Artificial Intelligence with an emphasis on ethical decision-making. Students learn technical concepts—such as how to train a simple classifier—and consider the ethical implications of those technical concepts, such as algorithmic bias. Students become comfortable with key terms such as dataset, learning algorithm, prediction, and optimization, and will practice using an ethical matrix. Students learn to recognize AI systems in everyday life and reason about the predictions those systems make. Throughout the course, students gain a foundational understanding of their newly issued MacBook computers including the basic workings of a computer (memory, storage, CPU, I/O), the difference between data and application, networking and cloud computing concepts and practice (client/server model), and data types and management using spreadsheets.

• 8th – CSE 8: Electronics & Robotics

  This course ties together computer science and engineering as students study physical computing in the form of electronics and robotics. Robotics requires a physical build as well as programming logic to add functionality. Students continue to use the Design Thinking Process as they design and build simple circuits; they use computer-aided design (CAD) software to design the housing for their robots. The prototypes are made using 3D printers and laser cutters. The course focuses on problem-solving, collaboration, project planning, troubleshooting, creativity, and perseverance as students design and build their robots over the course of the year.