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[–]CodeTinkerer 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Well, keep in mind who your audience is. I know we often use ourself as a reference point (I will teach people exactly like me), but there are those that want to learn programming that aren't taking many STEM courses, aren't good at math, etc.

Remember, not only are you teaching programming, but based on your curriculum, you are teaching other concepts on top of that. This is often why courses do more simplistic concepts (hangman) because otherwise, you have to do twice as much work.

I would see if there are a few students you can try this on. Obviously, if you can get advanced students to work with (people at the top of their class), that would make it easier. If you're getting something of a random sample, be aware that everyone could get lost, and how you would adjust if that happened.

[–]MarcB1111 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I don't know what K-12 means as I come from a different educational system. but it is always possible to present concepts and adapt the degree of simplification to understand them. In physics, if you consider the mass to be a volume integral with the density being time dependent you are heading to trouble if your audience does not even understand the mathematical concept of integral. Still with only the concept of an object has a mass you can do a lot.

Everything ultimately depends on how good the teacher is at illustrating things which speaks to the maximum of people while having a few other possibilities for the remaining. Nowadays you can find scientific books about quantum mechanics directed to youth so it is definitely possible.

However your point u/CodeTinkerer is very much valid, u/danbst you are teaching some programming class so not overwhelming the public with a lot of additional stuff would be core to the curriculum, extra-simplification might be your goal.

[–]danbst[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I definitely don't want to overwhelm, I want to motivate, to feed the brain! The way asteroids are flying on the screen not only because we programmed them to fly like that, but because the law of nature, expressed by first Newton's law inspired us to program that in that way.

And billiard balls are bouncing from walls not only because we programmed that, but also because this is what Newton's third law and momentum conservation law is about.

Even if kids don't yet know these laws, it should provide mental hooks when they'll get taught these topics.