At a glance
Solo · launched in Unit 3, with talks seven classes later · one border between computer science and another field · a written brief and a five-minute talk
What you are making
A brief on one area where computer science works with another field — bioinformatics, health informatics, climate modelling, computational linguistics, digital art, computational social science, or another border you find and can defend. Written for your classmates, who know what a loop is and nothing about your field.
Two deliverables: a two-page written brief, and a five-minute talk with slides or a demonstration.
What must be in it
- The question the field is asking, in one sentence a Grade 11 student understands. If you cannot get it into a sentence, you do not have it yet.
- What computing specifically contributes. Not “computers help” — which computing ideas? Sorting and searching at scale? Simulation? Machine learning? Visualisation? Name the idea, and where you have met it, even in a smaller form, in this course.
- What the other field contributes, which is usually the part students skip. Somebody has to know which questions are worth asking and which answers are plausible.
- One concrete example — a specific project, tool, or result — with enough detail that it is clearly a real thing and not a category.
- What is genuinely unsolved, and why it is hard.
- Sources, at least three, at least one of which is a university, research institute, government, or professional body. Name them where you use them, not only at the end.
How to work
- Choose from the table in Where the Field Is Going, or bring your own border and check it with me first.
- Find the example before you write the summary. A brief built from one real project stays honest; one built from general reading drifts into press-release language.
- Interrogate every claim: what was measured, against what baseline, and who benefits if you believe it?
- Write the brief, then cut it to two pages. The cutting is where it becomes clear.
- Build the talk from the brief, not the other way round. Five minutes is about four hundred words spoken — one idea, one example, one open question.
How this is assessed
| Quality | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Genuinely a border | Both fields are doing real work in your account |
| Specific | A named project or result, not a category |
| Computing named precisely | The actual ideas, not “technology” |
| Honest about limits | What is unsolved, and why |
| Sources that hold up | At least three, at least one authoritative, cited in place |
| Fits the audience | Your classmates could repeat your one-sentence question |
Choosing something nobody else will
The overlooked borders are often the best briefs: computing and archaeology, computing and hydrology, computing and accessibility, computing and Indigenous language revitalisation. Less has been written for a general audience, so you are forced to the real sources, which is where the interesting material was all along.
Reflect
A Code Journal entry: what did you believe about this field before you started, and which source changed it? Then: would you want to work at this border, and what would you have to learn first?