Engineering Critical Thinkers: Integrating Computer Science and Engineering

"Computers can occasionally mess up.” Hearing those words from a middle schooler feels like a small victory. Today’s middle schoolers are digital natives, but that doesn’t mean that they understand the algorithms underlying the applications that they use. Most kids trust computer output without question because, most of the time, computers are efficient, helpful, and accurate… until they aren’t. That moment of doubt—of healthy skepticism—signals something powerful: a student beginning to think critically about how computational tools work and why they behave the way they do. When students pause and consider the algorithm behind the output on their screen, we know our Youth Engineering Solutions Computer Science module achieved one of its goals.

Four years ago, when we partnered with MathWorks to develop a computer science curriculum, we thought deeply about what we wanted students to learn. Our Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) curricula are built on decades of experience engaging PK-12 learners in authentic, hands-on engineering challenges. We emphasize process over product; encouraging students to brainstorm, create, test, and improve original solutions as they draw on their scientific