The cells in your body are like computer software: they're "programmed" to carry out specific functions at specific times. If we can better understand this process, we could unlock the ability to reprogram cells ourselves, says computational biologist Sara-Jane Dunn. In a talk from the cutting-edge of science, she explains how her team is studying embryonic stem cells to gain a new understanding of the biological programs that power life -- and develop "living software" that could transform medicine, agriculture and energy.
ISTE and the Computer Science Teachers Association collaborated on a series of resources designed to help prepare young learners to become computational thinkers who understand how today's digital tools can help solve tomorrow's problems.
The goal is to use computational thinking to forge ideas that are at least as "explicative" as the Euclid-like constructions (and hopefully more so) but more accessible and more powerful. In the next section I illustrate the idea by using Turtle geometry to give the theorem about angles subtended by a chord greater perspicuity, a more intuitive proof and new connections to other ideas.