Course Overview:

(description from College Board)

AP Computer Science Principles is an introductory college-level computing course that introduces students to the breadth of the field of computer science. Students learn to design and evaluate solutions and to apply computer science to solve problems through the development of algorithms and programs. They incorporate abstraction into programs and use data to discover new knowledge. Students also explain how computing innovations and computing systems—including the internet—work, explore their potential impacts, and contribute to a computing culture that is collaborative and ethical. 

Big Ideas (College Board)

1. Creative Development: When developing computing innovations, developers can use a formal, iterative design process or a less rigid process of experimentation, and will encounter phases of investigating and reflecting, designing, prototyping, and testing. Collaboration is an important tool at any phase of development. 

2. Data: Data are central to computing innovations because they communicate initial conditions to programs and represent new knowledge. 

3. Algorithms and Programming: Programmers integrate algorithms and abstraction to create programs for creative purposes and to solve problems. 

4. Computing Systems and Networks: Computer systems and networks are used to transfer data. 

5. Impact of Computing: Computers and computing have revolutionized our lives. To use computing safely and responsibly, we need to be aware of privacy, security, and ethical issues. 

Units / Descriptions (Code.org)

 (the sequence may differ)

Unit 1 Digital Information: Explore how computers store complex information like numbers, text, images, and sound and debate the impacts of digitizing information.

Unit 2 The Internet: Learn about how the Internet works and discuss its impacts on politics, culture, and the economy.

Unit 3 Intro to App Design: Design your first app while learning both fundamental programming concepts and collaborative software development processes.

Unit 4 Variables, Conditionals, and Functions: Expand the types of apps you can create by adding the ability to store information, make decisions, and better organize code.

Unit 5 Data: Explore and visualize datasets from a wide variety of topics as you hunt for patterns and try to learn more about the world around you.

Unit 6  Lists, Loops, and Traversals: Build apps that use large amounts of information and pull in data from the web to create a wider variety of apps.

Unit 7 Parameters, Return, and Libraries: Learn how to design clean and reusable code that you can share with a single classmate or the entire world.

Unit 8 Cyber-security and Global Impact: Research and debate current events at the intersection of data, public policy, law, ethics, and societal impact.

Unit 9 Create Performance Task

Unit 10 Algorithms: Build apps that use large amounts of information and pull in data from the web to create a wider variety of apps.