Development of a Pandemic Awareness STEM Outreach Curriculum: Utilizing a Computational Thinking Taxonomy Framework

Area of Science:

• STEM Education
• Public Health
• Computational Thinking

Background:

• The global workforce increasingly requires computational thinking skills.
• The recent public health crisis underscored the need for greater epidemiological understanding among students and educators.
• Existing STEM curricula offer opportunities to integrate epidemiology with computational thinking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and implement a novel STEM curriculum focused on epidemiology for middle school students.
• To embed computational thinking and problem-solving skills within the context of public health.
• To leverage an informal education setting to enhance data science learning.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Computational Thinking Taxonomy to guide curriculum development.
• Implemented the curriculum within a STEM outreach program at a Research I Institution.
• Focused on developing middle school students' problem-solving and mathematical thinking practices.

Main Results:

• Successfully created a Pandemic Awareness STEM Curriculum.
• Introduced middle school students to epidemiological concepts through engaging activities.
• Facilitated the development of computational thinking and data science skills in an informal setting.

Conclusions:

• Informal STEM outreach programs can effectively teach complex topics like epidemiology.
• Integrating computational thinking with public health provides a contextually rich learning environment.
• This approach offers a model for future data science and computational thinking curricula.