U5Ch1L4_ControllingMemoryWithVariables

Purpose: Students will create and assign values to variables.

Vocabulary:

• Variable - A Placeholder or Container for a piece of information that can change.

State: Variables in Coding is NOT the same as Variables in Math!
Avoid making any connection between Coding Variables and Math Variables
In particular:

• The = sign in programming is an instruction to store a value in memory, NOT a statement of equality.
• “Variables” in computer programming are just named pieces of memory, NOT unknowns in an equation or symbols for undetermined values.

Thus, lines of code that assign values to variables and expressions that use variables are really instructions to retrieve and store values in memory. And those values change while the program executes.

Video: Variable - A Container For Storing a Value.

Activity: Guess The Changing Value? (Handout)

Code.org: U5Ch1L4_Controlling Memory with Variables.  (Grade Sheet!)
            Go To #4 Variables Toolbox
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