Unit 7: Capstone Projects

Framing Concept: What can you build, explain, and defend?

Unit Overview

The final unit of the course is a synthesis. Students design and build a culminating project that reflects their growth in reasoning, systems thinking, and communication. Projects are diverse in form but unified in rigor: each must demonstrate technical fluency, structural clarity, and interpretive depth.

This is not a showcase for flash—it’s a space to demonstrate coherence. Students return to ideas, tools, and skills developed throughout the year and wield them with intention.

Essential Questions

  • What have I learned to do with computing?
  • What does my code say—and who is it for?
  • How do I explain the choices I’ve made?
  • What does it mean to be fluent in computational thinking?

Project Pathways

Students choose or develop a capstone under one of three themes:

1. Data Narrative

  • Pose a question and answer it using real-world data
  • Clean, analyze, and visualize data (Pyret or Python/Jupyter)
  • Annotate findings, source data ethically, and present conclusions

2. System Simulation

  • Build a dynamic model using loops, conditionals, and state
  • Simulate rules, behaviors, or flows in a system (Python or browser-based)
  • Emphasize logic structure and real-world correspondence

3. Interface and Interpretation

  • Develop a website or interactive artifact to communicate a CS concept or project
  • Emphasize user experience, clarity, and accessibility
  • Integrate HTML, CSS, and optionally JS or embedded data

Deliverables

  • Final artifact (code, site, simulation, notebook, etc.)
  • Technical documentation: purpose, process, logic, tools
  • Reflective writing: what did I build, why, and what did I learn?
  • Peer feedback and revision checkpoint

Presentation + Evaluation

  • Presentation day or exhibition-style review
  • Rubric includes: clarity, complexity, explanation, coherence, polish
  • Panel includes teacher, peers, and optionally outside guests or community members

Stretch + Extensions

  • Use GitHub or similar to version and share project
  • Host publicly (if school infra allows)
  • Write a blog post or developer log
  • Submit to a student showcase, fair, or publication

End-of-Unit Statement

By the end of Unit 8, students have built something real. They’ve demonstrated fluency not just in syntax, but in thought. They’ve chosen what to say and how to say it. And they’ve seen how computer science can be a tool for meaning-making—not just making things work.