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Treat Computer Science As a Science: It's the Law
theodp writes: Last week, President Obama signed into law H.R. 1020, the STEM Education Act of 2015, which expands the definition of STEM to include computer science for the purposes of carrying out education activities at the NSF, DOE, NASA, NOAA, NIST, and the EPA. The Bill was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Rep. Elizabeth Etsy (D-CT). Smith's February press release linked to letters of support from tech billionaire-backed Code.org (whose leadership includes Microsoft President Brad Smith), and the Microsoft-backed STEM Education Coalition (whose leadership includes Microsoft Director of Education Policy Allyson Knox).
Where does it say that "computer science must be treated as science, by law"? It declares computer science to be part of STEM. STEM does not simply mean "science" - science is only the "S" in STEM. STEM means "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math" There's nothing inappropriate about computer science being taught in that grouping.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
There is a wide difference on how computer science is taught across many institutions.
In My college Computer Science was combined in the Department of Math, Physics and Computer Science. So Computer Science was taught in more of Mathematical and Scientific method. Encouraging taking the scientific method to help solve problems.
1. Identify the question you want to solve.
2. Offer a Hypothesis on how to solve it.
3. Experiment (writing code), and going back to #2 if it doesn't work.
4. Offer your Theory as your solution.
In class our peers may review some of our solutions and offer feedback, such as stating inputs of X, Y, Z may cause it to fail. Or applying Discrete mathematics to prove that it does or doesn't work.
While there is some talk about the technology and engineering principles, it was mostly Science and Math. for my version of Computer Science.
I have dealt with other students from other schools who said Computer Science was Engineering Lite, others where it was Just computer engineering under the Computer Science name. And others where it was just focusing on the technology and not as much the principals.
My Computer Science classes focused a lot more on Big O performance, while other students Never heard of it.
Computer Science for the Most Part seems to be a combination of STEM all with different levels of degrees.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Computers are a critical enabling technology for many if not most types of science these days, they are technology (what else best fits in "technology" if not computer science, given that engineering is a different category?), they're critical for nearly all engineering these days, and most mathematics work. It's an entirely appropriate category.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Perhaps its different these days, but when I was studying CS back in the 80's, pretty much every accredited program in the US was either part of its Uni's Math Department, or its Engineering Department.
So perhaps people had trouble making up their minds if it was a kind of Math or of Engineering, but either way it should already have been covered in STEM.
And "coders" are so normal today because so many people in STEM fields have to program. It's not rare at all anymore for a scientist, mathematician, or engineer to have to write scripts or whole programs to support their work - either it's not in the budget to hire a programmer for the specific task, or it's just too much effort to bring a programmer up to date with the scientific background needed to really understand the task at hand.
And as mentioned, what exactly is the T in STEM for anyway, given that it's clearly not "engineering" (the E)? It's where computer science should be.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Computer science pretty much is a science. Not your coding classes, computer technology training, etc, but real computer science is very much a science. Of course all courses include some coding and computer technology, and just as you'd expect someone with a Chemistry degree to be able to do the work of a lab technician some one with a CS degree will be able to code and operate computers -- but there is much more than that.