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Project Guts

Teachers with Guts

Empower your middle school classroom with Project GUTS, a dynamic curriculum that blends science and computer science into one engaging learning experience. Designed to help students “grow up thinking scientifically,” Project GUTS equips them to ask big questions, build and test computer models, and think critically about the world around them, all while discovering that science is creative, computational, and anything but static.

Interested in professional development for you and your district?

Project GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) is an integrated science and computer science program for middle school students. The curriculum focuses on teaching students to grow up thinking scientifically, meaning to learn to look at the world and to ask questions, developing and using computer models that help answer questions through scientific inquiry, and using critical thinking to assess which ideas are reasonable and which are not. To grow up thinking scientifically means knowing science to be a computing-rich, dynamic, creative endeavor, a way of thinking, rather than a body of facts.

This 5-day professional development course will provide teachers with the content and pedagogy to integrate the Project GUTS curriculum into their classrooms. The week-long workshop will provide participants the opportunity to explore the curriculum and tools, consider classroom management and teaching strategies, and build a local community of teachers who are using this curriculum.

2 hours of teacher relicensure or grad credit available through the AEA.

Funding through the Computer Science Professional Development Incentive Fund can be used for this program.

Project GUTS is aligned to the CSTA and NGSS standards. The science content is geared towards the life, physical, and Earth science strands in NGSS. Emphasis will be made throughout the week on helping educators understand how computer science can be used to explain scientific phenomena and integrated into their teaching. See specific connections to the Iowa Core.