Boxer: a reconstructible computational medium
Communications of the ACM
Causal model progressions as a foundation for intelligent learning environments
Artificial Intelligence - Special issue on artificial intelligence and learning environments
Should we teach students to program?
Communications of the ACM
Agentsheets: a tool for building domain-oriented visual programming environments
INTERCHI '93 Proceedings of the INTERCHI '93 conference on Human factors in computing systems
Turtles, termites, and traffic jams: explorations in massively parallel microworlds
Turtles, termites, and traffic jams: explorations in massively parallel microworlds
Programming by example: novice programming comes of age
Communications of the ACM
Changing minds: computers, learning, and literacy
Changing minds: computers, learning, and literacy
C5 '04 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creating, Connecting and Collaborating through Computing
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Kedama: A GUI-Based Interactive Massively Parallel Particle Programming System
VLHCC '05 Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Communications of the ACM - Self managed systems
Journal of Visual Languages and Computing
Is abstraction the key to computing?
Communications of the ACM
Simulation-Based Game Learning Environments: Building and Sustaining a Fish Tank
DIGITEL '07 Proceedings of the The First IEEE International Workshop on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning
Education: Paving the way for computational thinking
Communications of the ACM - Designing games with a purpose
A principled design for an integrated computational environment
Human-Computer Interaction
A multidisciplinary approach towards computational thinking for science majors
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
VIVA: A visual language for image processing
Journal of Visual Languages and Computing
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
On the aesthetics of children's computational modeling for learning science
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
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Computational thinking (CT) draws on concepts and practices that are fundamental to computing and computer science. It includes epistemic and representational practices, such as problem representation, abstraction, decomposition, simulation, verification, and prediction. However, these practices are also central to the development of expertise in scientific and mathematical disciplines. Recently, arguments have been made in favour of integrating CT and programming into the K-12 STEM curricula. In this paper, we first present a theoretical investigation of key issues that need to be considered for integrating CT into K-12 science topics by identifying the synergies between CT and scientific expertise using a particular genre of computation: agent-based computation. We then present a critical review of the literature in educational computing, and propose a set of guidelines for designing learning environments on science topics that can jointly foster the development of computational thinking with scientific expertise. This is followed by the description of a learning environment that supports CT through modeling and simulation to help middle school students learn physics and biology. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system by discussing the results of a small study conducted in a middle school science classroom. Finally, we discuss the implications of our work for future research on developing CT-based science learning environments.