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?
Curriculum connection
D2.1
demonstrate an understanding of emerging areas of research in computer science (e.g., cryptography, parallel processing, distributed computing, data mining, artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, image processing, human–computer interaction, security, geographic information systems [GIS]);
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D2.2
demonstrate an understanding of an area of collaborative research between computer science and another field (e.g., bioinformatics, geology, economics, linguistics, health informatics, climatology, sociology, art);
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D2.3
report on an area of research related to computer science, using an appropriate format (e.g., website, presentation software, video).
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