South Fayette’s Computer Science
Department Pilots First Carnegie
Mellon High School CS Course
T
he students in the Computer Science
department at South Fayette High
School have been helping to shape a
new course recently launched by Carnegie
Mellon’s School of Computer Science (CMU).
CMU, world-renowned for computer science
and artificial intelligence, will be launching a
free, online curriculum for high school students
in the fall of 2019. The CS Academy, and its CS1
curriculum, focuses on using engaging graphics
and animations to teach students how to code
using Python Programming. This curriculum fills
a gap between introductory computer science
educational materials for grades K-8 and the
rigorous Advanced Placement courses the high
school offers. The course introduces students
to a variety of Python topics including, but not
limited to, shapes, functions, mouse events, key
events, conditionals, loops, methods, groups,
and a variety of other topics.
“This text-based Python course allows
students to be creative and think outside the
box while learning the most widely taught
coding language,” said Dawn McCullough,
South Fayette High School’s Computer Science
teacher. McCullough, who also teaches Java
and AP Computer Science A, has worked closely
with Carnegie Mellon over the last 12 months
to be trained using the software platform that is
required for the course. “Working with CMU and
being one of the first pilot partners has allowed
our students to help shape the course and have
input on the design process. The students were
players in the game, which is a tremendous
honor for them,” said McCullough. South Fayette
piloted this course in the spring and fall of
2018. They were part of a small subset of 14
pilot schools initially. During those semesters,
the SF students had access to the software
platform, CMU students, and faculty members.
This allowed the SF students to assist in the
pilot process. It was all hands-on for students to
learn Python through the evolving curriculum
created by CMU. In addition, South Fayette and
CMU were awarded a spot to be presenters
at the highly competitive ISTE (International
Society for Technology Education) national
conference in June of 2019 for this curriculum.
Python is one of the most popular
programming languages in the industry today,
used by a host of organizations including top
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SOUTH FAYETTE