Career Focus

Programming and Software Developer

Course Alignment

This challenge can be used in any

course or class.

Teacher Notes

In this challenge, students will use their experiences in the science or CTE class to develop an idea for

an app to assist students in learning and to better access content in the classroom. As with the real

world, we cannot anticipate who will have the next great idea for an app or what it will be, but we do not

provided suggestions in the TEKS connection portion of this lesson. This challenge includes a strong

career connection. The United States is not producing enough computer programmers to satisfy the

make up an even smaller percentage of computer programmers (Committee on STEM Education,

2018). Developing a design for an app is an introductory computer science task that can lead to a

career in computer science (Google Inc. and Gallup Inc., 2016).

is a form of a prototype. The prototype should include a sketch of the home page as it would look on a

develop a working app. They are required to do the thinking necessary to start the design process for

a unique app. Through research, students may discover how to create and design apps. If the app idea

or solves a problem that the other app does not solve.

In the science classroom, apps may assist with several process skills. This could include measurements,

their applications, they should get feedback from other peer groups. Students may begin by brainstorming

Students may think that they need coding skills to develop an app. In reality, there are many different

websites to assist with app development. The following are the general steps app developers follow.

1. Determine the purpose of the app.

3. Determine the problem the app will solve, including what the app will do

and how it will meet the audience’s needs.

5. Design and test the app.

decomposition. Decomposition is the act of breaking tasks down into smaller tasks. The second skill

is pattern recognition. This includes determining whether there is something that is asked for over

and over that can be included in the program for the app. The next skill is abstraction which refers to

an algorithm, which is a detailed set of instructions to solve the task. These processes are similar to

science processes standards and may be presented in either form but are integral to the task.