CPATH-2: Collaborative Research: A Field Guide to the Science of Computation

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This CPATH award supports a distinguished group of computer scientists to develop, implement, and test a Field Guide for computing. The Field Guide includes a body of content with deep insights to provide a scientific framework for computing. The content is then tested by a collaborative partnership network including the ACM Education Board, the Computer Science Teachers Association, CS Unplugged, and LabRats. Implementation will occur in a wide variety of settings, including the BASIS Middle School and High School in Tuscon, one of the top high schools in the United States, and the Hartnell College, a 2 year college in California. The project includes a large team of experts broken into 4 working groups and distinguished scientific advisors. An external evaluator will measure the effectiveness of the content and field guide to attain the project goals.This project's long-range objective is to replace current views of computing with a new understanding, that computing is great domain of science, on par with the physical, life, and social sciences. This project directly supports the three main CPATH goals. (1) It contributes to US competitiveness by providing a scientific framework for computing, which will advance technology development and attract many more bright students, including more women and underrepresented groups. (2) It increases the number of students developing computational thinking by offering new learning possibilities, for undergraduates as well as for pre-college students. (3) It is transformative because it brings forward a science framework for computing, which has not been done before.Intellectual Merit. The project brings to the fore an underappreciated side ofComputing, that it is a great domain of science based on sound scientific theories and first principles. The ambitious project has amassed a stellar team of experts and organizational partners that span broad sectors of computing and the computing pipeline. It includes not only development of content, but deployment in real settings, and concrete plans for sustainability. Computation science offer deep insights and surprising predictions, and an experimental method to validate predictions and make discoveries. This project has the potential to substantially impact the fundamental nature of computing and its relationship to other disciplines and the way in which computing is taught.Broader Impacts. By reaching out from hard-core computer science to representatives of different age groups, the project will find ways to convey the science message to many generations. It will also provide solid grounding for other scientists to interact with computer scientists as peers in the search for new discoveries.