MU Computational Thinking Free St Valentine’s Day Tasks

Posted on February 14, 2022 The PACT team at Maynooth University Department of Computer Science develops resources and supports to allow teachers to teach topics in computer science at both primary and secondary school. We specialise in computational thinking resources and supports. Computational thinking is a set of problem-solving skills that computer scientists use when they do their everyday work. It intersects with all STEM fields because computational solutions have proven to be useful in many scientific fields.

Our PACT team in the Department of Computer Science at Maynooth University have been training teachers in how to teach computational thinking skills since 2012. We have engaged over 100 teachers and 10,000 students in computational thinking activities, with funding from Maynooth University Department of Computer Science, the Google CS4HS programme, and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). We have recently added some challenges for St Valentine’s Day. The first task is pitched at 8+ year olds, the next three at 11+ year olds, and the full set of five tasks would be appropriate for 13+ year olds.

There is no upper age limit, so second-level TY students will still find them enjoyable, and even LC students will find them a useful opportunity to discuss the most appropriate strategy for each task. https://pact.cs.nuim.ie/pages/resources-for-teachers.html