CSTA 2025 has over 200 sessions dedicated to expanding knowledge in CS education. Putting together your conference schedule can be overwhelming, which is why the CSTA 2025 Conference Committee has made specific recommendations based on what you may be looking for. Here are six sessions that middle school educators won’t want to miss.
How to Increase Sense of Belonging for Girls in Computer Science Classes
July 10, 10:30 AM-11:30 AM ET
Breakout session presented by Summer Robinson
Building students’ sense of belonging is a critical part of recruiting, engaging, and retaining them in computer science (CS). When students feel that they belong and are connected to others in the classroom, they are ready to engage on a deeper level. However, girls often feel that they do not belong in computer science classes. Our research lab has been studying when and why these gender gaps emerge in CS in order to help teachers address them. Teachers will learn about research findings through a collaborative process where we will present findings in a simple, actionable, and fun way that teachers can discuss in a community of practice. We will give a short summary of key research findings on K-12 students’ sense of belonging in computer science before teachers collaborate in small groups to reflect and discuss how they can promote belonging in their classes, especially for girls and minoritized students. As a group, we will talk about implications and practical tips for K-12 computer science educators who would like to use best practices based on research to improve students’ sense of belonging in their classes. Teachers will leave with an action plan for promoting their own students’ belonging.
Coding in Rhythm: Empowering Students Through Dance, Equity, and Computer Science
July 10, 4:00 PM-5:00 PM ET
Breakout session presented by Lisa Moe and Victor Hicks
Discover how the power of dance and coding can combine to engage and inspire students in this dynamic session. Through hands-on activities, participants will integrate rhythm and movement with computer science, learning how to code interactive digital dance routines using algorithms, sequences, and loops. This innovative approach bridges the gap between STEM and the arts, fostering creativity while meeting CSTA Standards in computational thinking and algorithms. The session will also provide strategies for creating an inclusive classroom, with a focus on equity, culturally relevant pedagogy, and ensuring diverse student engagement. Participants will leave with ready-to-implement lesson plans and resources to incorporate dance and coding into their own classrooms.
Little Language Models: Empowering Children to be Future AI Modelers
July 10, 9:00 AM-10:00 AM ET
Breakout session presented by Shruti Dhariwal and Manuj Dhariwal
‘Little Language Models’ is a free, collaborative AI education microworld within the CoCo platform (coco.build). It is designed to empower young people (ages 8-16) to explore the powerful ideas of Probabilistic Thinking, Modeling, and Learning that lie at the core of Generative AI systems. The tool provides custom probabilistic blocks and representations that let children easily build their own little models using their own data (including images, sounds, or text). They can use those to create a wide variety of projects with peers in real-time such as—generative art, music, and stories; adaptive games; interactive visualizations; and advanced projects using Markov modeling blocks.
It integrates inclusive pedagogies, allowing educators to weave the ideas of probabilistic thinking across subjects while centering learners’ interests. It’s designed to be culturally responsive, allowing students to use data and create projects relevant to their lives and communities. Moreover, by providing hands-on experience with model creation, it demonstrates how bias emerges in AI systems.
Further, we highlight the importance of developing Probabilistic Thinking in addition to Computational Thinking in K-12 education, to better prepare young people for the AI era. The work was featured by MIT Technology Review, and won 2023-24 Global Tools Prize, supported by Open AI, Gates Foundation, and others. It has been piloted across various schools, with educators from 85+ countries signing up.
Sprouting Fresh Ideas with Hydroponics and Micro:bits
July 11, 12:00 PM-3:00 PM ET
Workshop presented by Liz Walsh and Justin Cannady
In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore an innovative approach to integrating computer science into elementary and middle school classrooms by building and programming a microchip-controlled hydroponic system, the HydroBitBox. Using a micro:bit as the control unit, participants will program the system with MakeCode to collect real-time data through sensors and control the light source and water pump. This project demonstrates how computing can be effectively connected to real-world applications, offering students an authentic and engaging way to explore computer science while investigating the biology of plant growth.
Participants will engage in discussions and activities centered around sustainability in agricultural practices, focusing on how hydroponics can be an environmentally responsible way to grow crops with limited resources. Additionally, the workshop will examine the importance of sustainable and ethical mining practices due to the demand for raw materials in producing microchips, helping students draw connections between technological innovation and environmental responsibility. Another key discussion will address food insecurity, highlighting how an inexpensive and programmable solution like the HydroBitBox can help communities gain reliable access to fresh produce.
The Dance of Drones: Choreographing with Code
July 9, 9:00 AM-10:00 AM ET
Breakout session presented by Suzanne Banas
Everyone loves a show. Coding drones (robots), together with real time movements as well as storytelling, and a music score, to create a dance of the drones — an aerial ballet. The drones weigh less than a softball and are made from flexible plastic to make them safer. Using this collection of small drones, students can code the flight of the drone to move automatically instead of manually. Small drones can be flown very safely around the school or classroom, controlled by a number of apps or student programed code. The students can use coding blocks or Phyton code to program a drone to fly in a variety of directions, thus creating a “dance” Adding in LEDs to the dance of drones can become ‘firelight” shows.
Middle School Cybersecurity with Unplugged and Range Activities
July 11, 12:00 PM-3:00 PM ET
Workshop presented by Laurie Salvail, Jessica Hexsel, and Charlene Cooper
This workshop is structured to guide educators through beginner cybersecurity topics for middle school students. Participants will experience the activities as the students with the presenters modeling the instructor role. We begin with discussing ethics in cybersecurity and the importance of creating an ethics agreement in the classroom. A sample agreement will be provided to dissect and adapt as appropriate for use in their own classrooms. The workshop includes the presenters walking through unplugged activities related to personally identifiable information (PII) and phishing, as well as leading technical “code-along” demonstrations of cyber range activities related to those topics. Participants will need a personal device that is able to access the internet.
Register for CSTA 2025
Be sure to head to the full conference program to read more about these recommendations and plan which sessions you want to attend. If you haven’t registered for the annual conference yet, head to the CSTA 2025 website to secure your spot. We are excited to see you there!