[Edu-sig] A suggestion for a high school programming project

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: edu-sig-bounces at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces at python.org] On
> Behalf Of Paul Barrett
> Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 11:46 PM
> To: edu-sig at python.org
> Subject: [Edu-sig] A suggestion for a high school programming project
> 
> 
> I was at SciPy (the Scientific Python Conference) in Pasadena, CA last
> week. 

I'm jealous.

<snip> 


> In my opinion, creating such a package should not be too difficult.
> Vision already provides the visual programming environment. The next
> step is to extend it with software for creating electronic circuits. I'm
> guessing that advanced high school students should be able to tackle
> this project with some guidance from a computer science teacher and an
> electronics teacher. In addition, a possible application of this package
> would be to create an OBDII (On-Board Diagnostics 2) scanner for reading
> information from a car's microprocessor.  Hardware, which can be used to
> interface the car's microprocessor to a laptop, can be purchased for
> about $100.
> 
> Having heard Jeff Elkner talk about his experiences teaching Python to
> students at Yorktown HS in Arlington, VA, I think this project is
> achievable for a group of advanced high school students. What I think is
> nice about this project is that it has practical applications.
> 
> Any takers or am over the top on this one?

Knowing less than nothing about electronic circuits, I can't say. Not that
I'm proud or content with knowing nothing about electronic circuits.
Certainly I was not exposed to much about the subject, beyond some highly
abstract text-book talk, in school. And in the environment in which I happen
to have grown up there was not much influence in my immediate vicinity from
people who might have exposed me to these kinds of things outside of school.

To know as little as I do about something as much a part of my everyday life
is actually quite peculiar.  Worse than that - in view of the fact that I
would be considered a highly educated person,  and the little I do
understand is much more than most of the people around me understand. This
represents a new kind of stage in civilization, with implications I think
that are underplayed

So many folks knowing so little about the basic tools around which their
lives revolve.  There is a disequilibrium in that circumstances that is
bound to catch up to us. (God, am I sounding like a Liberal Arts type of
guy). 

What I can say is that there has been much in the mainstream press in recent
months about the failure of science education (I think particularly the
exposure to science in the "general education" curriculum - and I think it
has been a relatively long standing problem, with myself in part a product
of the problem). And folks seem to be coming to the conclusion that the main
problem is that no one learns science by reading about it in books. One
learns science by doing science.  

It is my opinion that activity based learning around scientific (and
mathematical subjects) is the right use of computers in the classroom.  

What I would hope you might be able to do is to scale down the ambition of
your idea enough to make it realistic as something that might be able to be
used in a more general way, for the folks not already heading in the
direction of specializing in scientific subjects.

And to make it fully realistic, go out and get a big fat NSF grant to fund
the necessary efforts.  

Would love to try to help.

Art