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The BJC Sparks curriculum is a functional-first, multiple-programming-paradigm curriculum intended for students in Middle School and early High School that teaches computer science using Snap! and MicroBlocks. It is a novel computer science curriculum founded on the principles of functional programming, but also teaching (and reaping the benefits of) imperative, object-oriented, and event-based paradigms. We are proudly (pure) functions-first, emphasizing abstraction, domain and range, functional decomposition, immutable data with a state-free experience, and the use of powerful higher-order functions such as map, keep, and combine.

We launched it with twenty pilot teachers in the summer of 2021, and solicited teachers for this panel from that group who will share:

• The greatest Snap! projects they saw this year
• Snap! features that would make their life easier
• Their evolution in learning Snap! yourself
• The elements of Snap! that engaged their students the most

Even better, if we are able to arrange it with the students' parents, we look forward to welcome a small cohort of their actual students (maybe 2-3 per teacher) to hear their experiences and maybe see their projects (if they did not just come from lab).