The Development of Computational Thinking in a High School Chemistry Course

Computational thinking is a component of the Science and Engineering Practices in the Next Generation Science Standards, which were adopted by some states. We describe the activities in a high school chemistry course that may develop students’ computational thinking skills by primarily using Excel, a widely available spreadsheet software. These activities were classified as (i) the use of simulation and modeling, (ii) experimental data analysis, (iii) coding or programming, (iv) algorithmic reasoning, and (v) statistics and probability.