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I would like to eventually teach Mathematica to my future high school students. In high school, there are many students who haven't taken a computer science class yet. I know Mathematica can get really complicated(it was for my first year!), what are some things that I should include in my lesson plan during the first semester? May I have some visual examples please?

Joanna Liriano
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    You might want to look at what gets taught in their math and science classes, and then show them how Mathematica can help in solving problems that show up in those other classes. – J. M.'s missing motivation Apr 23 '13 at 18:41
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    I like this a lot: http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/MathSource/1847/ But the real question is, what exactly would you like to teach through Mathematica? Some maths, e.g. plotting and analysing functions? Approaches to programming (e.g. functional vs procedural, data structures, etc.)? Or just play with visual things while learning some light programming, e.g. demonstrate a recursive function drawing a Koch curve? It'd be good to be a bit more specific about these things. – Szabolcs Apr 23 '13 at 18:43
  • @J.M. The "Intelligent Design" curricula could be quite inspiring – Dr. belisarius Apr 23 '13 at 18:45
  • @bel, "How to intelligently design Mathematica routines" sounds like an interesting course... – J. M.'s missing motivation Apr 23 '13 at 18:50
  • Also links with English, Geography, Art, Music, Economics, etc. But I'm struggling to think of applications for Religious Studies... – cormullion Apr 23 '13 at 19:35
  • @cormullion I'm afraid of the easy jokes. ReturnToThee[] instead of Return[] ... – Dr. belisarius Apr 23 '13 at 19:35
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    NARQ or not...? – Sjoerd C. de Vries Apr 23 '13 at 19:37
  • @SjoerdC.deVries ... that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to close it as NARQ or a duplicate or let it be. I can't decide so I'll pass:) – Ajasja Apr 23 '13 at 20:24
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    I disagree that Mathematica is "complicated." If you understand that what you're doing (and what Mathematica itself is doing) is transforming expressions from one form to another, the rest follows. So for example, you could show how Mathematica itself might reduce fractions using a rule(s). And you can show how relentless the Mathematica system is in this aspect by doing /. Hue[___] -> Hue[1] on the graphical output of a plot. Etc. – amr Apr 23 '13 at 21:10
  • @ajasja What's in a name? – Sjoerd C. de Vries Apr 23 '13 at 21:18
  • This is an interesting and worthwhile project, so it's a pity that this isn't the right site to help it develop. (And I can't offhand think of another site where Mathematica users could contribute suggestions and ideas to a project like this.) With some more focussed questions (such as "how can I visualise X..."), this site can still help the project grow. "The rest is silence." :) – cormullion Apr 24 '13 at 07:02
  • At the risk of being ostracized, I will suggest Scratch instead of Mathematica for this age group, if you have students who are shaky on coordinates, functions and algebraic expressions. My daughter and I programmed our own sprites to interact with each other in the same project. We borrowed ideas from each other, competed, sometimes she sabotaged my sprite since it's open, co-wrote the story. We had a lot of fun, and she learned most of it on her own by copying and altering my examples. It's aimed at pre-HS students. – Michael E2 Apr 24 '13 at 12:30

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