We present the curriculum, deployment, and initial evaluation of a course, BioCS1, designed to serve as an introductory course in both biology and CS. Co-taught by professors in both fields, BioCS1 interweaves fundamental biology and computational topics in a manner similar to contextual approaches to CS1. In contrast to other contextual approaches, however, BioCS1 emphasizes both CS and its context equally. The results suggest that such cross-disciplinary collaborations can thrive at the introductory level, just as they have later in the curriculum.
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Dodds et al. (2012) studied this question.