Observe
Describe exactly what is visible. Separate observations from guesses.
First-day computer science challenge
Can you discover the rules beneath the ice?
Observe the dice. Test a hypothesis. Use evidence. Revise your thinking. That is how computer scientists turn a mystery into an algorithm.
One important rule: do not search for the solution. The productive struggle is the point.
01
Begin with the clues
The riddle of the ice
Polar bears, they come in pairs.
How many polar bears do you see?
They sit around the hole in the ice
like petals around a flower.
Fish swim in a hole.
How many fish are in the sea?
Look below.
Take control.
Fish eat plankton, so they hang out
How many plankton?
where the fish are not.
They travel in groups of seven.
Try multiplying the spots.
02
Investigate with a partner
Think like a reverse engineer
Hypothesize
Propose one rule for bears, one for fish, and one for plankton.
Test
Choose a roll that could prove your rule wrong. Record the evidence.
Refine
Keep what the evidence supports and revise what it does not.
Interactive lab
Game challenge
Count from the top faces only. Enter your three predictions, then verify the complete roll.
A wrong answer is data. Change one part of your hypothesis and test again.
03
After the reveal
From pattern to program
Once your class has investigated, open the explanation. Notice how each thinking move maps to a core computer science practice.
Reveal the rules and CS connections
Ice holes
An odd face has one center pip, so 1, 3, and 5 each contain one hole.
Polar bears
On an odd face, count the pips around the center: 0 on a 1, 2 on a 3, and 4 on a 5.
Fish
Fish are below each hole. Opposite sides of a standard die add to 7, so fish beneath an odd face equal 7 minus the top value.
Plankton
Plankton appear where fish do not: on even faces. Each visible pip represents a group of 7 plankton.
Pattern recognition
You compared examples to find relationships that repeat.
Decomposition
You split one large mystery into smaller bear, fish, and plankton problems.
Abstraction
You ignored unneeded details and represented each die with the few facts that affect the result.
Algorithm
You turned the pattern into precise steps using sequence, selection between odd and even faces, and iteration across every die.
Testing and debugging
You tried inputs, compared predicted and actual outputs, and revised an incorrect rule.
The rule as pseudocode
A repeatable algorithm
holes ← 0
bears ← 0
fish ← 0
plankton ← 0
FOR EACH die
IF die is odd
holes ← holes + 1
bears ← bears + (die - 1)
fish ← fish + (7 - die)
ELSE
plankton ← plankton + (die × 7)