2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8) in the United States, computer science is sometimes integrated into other content areas like social studies, science, and math rather than taught as a stand-alone subject. This integration can enrich disciplinary content learning while ensuring equitable access to computer science for all students. When computer science is integrated into disciplinary content areas in K-8, the demographics of students engaging with computer science contents typically reflect the demographics of the school, suggesting that K-8 is an important arena for reducing participation and identification gaps in computer science. However, most K-8 teachers have little to no exposure to computer science and, as a result, require curricula and professional development to support K-8 computer science integration in their classrooms.
Here, we report on findings from our National Science Foundation Computer Science For All project focused on developing integrated computer science curricula for use with middle school students in Montana and Wyoming. Montana and Wyoming present an interesting context for developing and implementing integrated computer science curricula. First, computer science standards are relatively new in both states. Schools began implementing computer science standards in the last two years, meaning that most teachers had little to no experience with computer science at the outset of our project. Second, both states have an Indian Education For All (IEFA) requirement, meaning that all K-12 students must learn about the Indigenous peoples who call these states home. Integrating IEFA and computer science students presents a unique opportunity for developing integrated, culturally responsive-sustaining computer science curricula.
We designed an integrated social studies unit and a computer science unit around the topic of food sovereignty for middle school students and their teachers. We also provided teachers with professional development around how to teach the two curricular units. Some teachers who attended the professional development sessions have already implemented the curriculum in their classrooms. In this paper, we first introduce the curricular units and then examine their strengths and challenges from the teachers' perspectives, based on their classroom implementation experiences. Drawing on multiple teacher interviews and fieldnotes, we examine teachers’ overall impressions of the curriculum, what they saw as strengths, and what they saw as challenges. This work contributes to our knowledge of K-8 computer science integration, particularly teacher perspectives on K-8 computer science integration.