Unit 5 Lesson 12: Loops and Simulations CS Principles

Unit 5 Lesson 12: Loops and Simulations Students will be able to: Use a while loop in a program to repeatedly call a block of code. Use variables, iteration, and conditional logic within a loop to record the results of a repeated process. Identify instances where a simulation might be useful to learn more about real-world phenomena. Develop a simulation of a simple real-world phenomenon

Loops and Simulations The ability to model and simulate real-world phenomena on a computer has changed countless fields. Researchers use simulations to predict the weather, the stock market, or the next viral outbreak. Scientists from all disciplines increasingly rely on computer simulation, rather than real-life experiments, to rapidly test their hypotheses in simulated environments. Programmers might simulate users moving across their sites to ensure they can handle spikes in traffic, and of course videogame and virtual reality technology is built around the ability to simulate some aspects of the real world. The speed and scale at which simulations allow ideas to be tested and refined has had far-reaching impact, and it will only continue to grow in importance as computing power and computational models improve.

U5L12 Vocab Models and Simulations - a program which replicates or mimics key features of a real world event in order to investigate its behavior without the cost, time, or danger of running an experiment in real life.

U5L11 Prompt Prompt: "We’re going to run two simple experiments. Use your worksheets to keep track of your results (by writing “H” or “T” for each flip) but keep them a secret for now." Experiment 1: Groups will flip their coins as many times as it takes in order to get 5 heads total Experiment 2: Groups will flip their coins as many times as it takes to get 3 heads in a row

U5L11 Prompt (continued) Prompt: "Let’s have a little competition. You should have recorded your results for your two experiments. Based on your experiment, predict, among every group in the class the most and fewest flips needed to complete each of the experiments."

Transition to Code Studio Open U5L11 Flipping Coins Activity Guide on Code Studio You will be making a simulation of flipping coins. Make a prediction for the outcomes of the experiments they will run. Make sure you make this prediction before moving on. You should record their predictions in the space provided on their worksheets.