PLTW Computer Science

Computer Science Essentials (CSE)

Computer Science Essentials exposes students to a diverse set of computational thinking concepts, fundamentals, and tools, allowing them to gain understanding and build confidence. Students use visual, block-based programming and seamlessly transition to text-based programming with languages such as Python® to create apps and develop websites, and learn how to make computers work together to put their design into practice. They apply computational thinking practices, build their vocabulary, and collaborate just as computing professionals do to create products that address topics and problems important to them.

Cybersecurity (SEC)

Cybersecurity introduces the tools and concepts of cybersecurity and encourages students to create solutions that allow people to share computing resources while protecting privacy. Nationally, computational resources are vulnerable and frequently attacked; in Cybersecurity, students solve problems by understanding and closing these vulnerabilities. This course raises students’ knowledge of and commitment to ethical computing behavior. It also aims to develop students’ skills as consumers, friends, citizens, and employees who can effectively contribute to communities with a dependable cyber-infrastructure that moves and processes information safely.

Computer Science Principles (CSP)

Using Python® as a primary tool and incorporating multiple platforms and languages for computation, this course aims to develop computational thinking, generate excitement about career paths that utilize computing, and introduce professional tools that foster creativity and collaboration. Computer Science Principles helps students develop programming expertise and explore the workings of the Internet. Projects and problems include app development, visualization of data, cybersecurity, and simulation.

Computer Science A (CSA)

Throughout the Computer Science A course experience, students cultivate their understanding of coding through analyzing, writing, and testing code as they explore concepts like modularity, variables, and control structures. Fundamental topics in this course include the design of solutions to problems, the use of data structures to organize large sets of data, the development and implementation of algorithms to process data and discover new information, the analysis of potential solutions, and the ethical and social implications of computing systems. The course emphasizes object-oriented programming and design using the Java programming language course.

Develop in-demand
knowledge and skills
for wherever life
leads you.

Employment Growth
Occupations in science,
technology, engineering,
and math are projected
to grow nearly 9%
from 2018 to 2028.

Wage Growth
The median wage in 2019
for STEM occupations
was $86,980, while
non-stem workers had
a median salary of $38,160.

Source: Bureau of Labor
Statistics

Apply to the STEM Academy

Collin Doerflinger

Collin was a student in Shoreland’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Academy. “It did a really good job in giving me a glimpse of what I would see here,” says the college senior. In particular, Collin recalls the aerospace unit of a STEM course in high school that challenged students to design and create an airfoil, which is essentially a segment of an airplane wing. They then tested their creations in the school’s wind tunnel. Read his story