The DEPICT Curriculum has two major tracks to it - critical thinking activities and programming.
First, it contains activities that develop critical thinking skills. These critical thinking skills are crucial to computer science, but they are also important for students in all areas of education. These critical thinking skills include breaking down large problems, analyzing the tradeoffs between solutions, and following and generating precise instructions.
Second, it contains programming activities. These programming activities build computer science skills, and each module leads up to a single, somewhat more open-ended culminating project. For the first module, this open-ended project could be a report about a book, mission, animal, scientific process, etc., or the animation of a story. For module two, this can be a fully-functional game that students can design and implement. Module three will feature advanced concepts such as data representation and lists in order to allow students to implement more multimedia features (e.g. music box).
Module 1: Digital Storytelling
Module 1 is geared towards 4th grade. Students first learn about the Octopi interface, and then learn the different skills needed to create a digital story. Topics include sequential programming, event driven programming, costume changes, broadcast/receive, and scene changes.
Module 2: Game Design
Module 2 is geared towards 5th grade and builds off of module 1. Students learn the different skills needed to design a game in Octopi. Topics include loops, decision making, variables, and comparing different solutions.
Module 3: Advanced Concepts
Module 3 is geared towards 6th grade and builds off of module 1 and 2. Topics include music as numbers, parallelism in every day life, parallel sorting, and breaking down complex problems.