Bringing grades K-5 to the mainstream of computer science education

As awareness of computer science education grows in the general public, it is important to showcase computer science education as accessible for all grades K-12 and beyond. As panelists present the projects and research they've been conducting, we will highlight three overarching topics: • The importance of K-5 computer science education to educators of all grade levels, • Thoughts on why K-5 has traditionally been less prominent in the computer science education landscape, and • Strategies on how we, the computer science education community, can promote K-5 computer science education as worthwhile as 6-12+ computer science education. Barriers to why K-5 computer science education is not as prominent as that in grades 6-12, such as scarcity of wide-spread curriculum or scarcity of research, will lead to panelists presenting how their work is rectifying this imbalance. This session's panelists are pioneers and important thought leaders in the K-5 computer science education field. Panelists in this session are either producing research in the K-5 computer science education field or working at a large scale to promote or increase participation of K-5 students in computer science.