Home My space log
Language EN (English)

Binary search trees

Intermediate alien Difficulty 3/5 Screen-free lesson Stop 18 / 19 ages 11-13

A hands-on, screen-free CS Unplugged lesson for ages 11-13 (about 45 minutes), part of the 'Data structures for searching' unit.

For a grown-up to do with a child.

Start the guide Go to the lesson

Your guide

AI-written overview

What is it?

Binary search trees is part of a CS Unplugged unit about organising data so it is quick to search. You act out a tree on the ground and walk through it.

Is it for me?

It is for older children, about 11-13 and up, who have already tried the searching games, with a grown-up or teacher. It is an Intermediate activity.

Grown-ups: children often mix up binary search and binary search trees. They are related, but not the same.

How to start

  1. Draw a big tree on the ground with chalk or tape.
  2. Pick a target number and walk the tree, turning over nodes.
  3. Compare with searching a sorted list.

How much time?

Plan about 55 minutes at a time over about 5 sessions. (estimate)

55 min per session 5 sessions estimate

A plan you can follow

  1. Day 1 45 min Walk through the tree.
  2. Day 2 30 min Build your own tree with new numbers.
  3. Week 1 30 min Compare with the sorted list game.

Times are estimates. Go at your own speed.

Start the lesson

Open our lesson page for Binary search trees. It is a short, simple version of an open lesson you can do together.

Go to the lesson

Adapted from CS Unplugged by the University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research Group, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made: simplified, shortened and translated by Open Cosmos with AI.

On this site. From the list: uccser/cs-unplugged · License: CC-BY-SA-4.0 · CS Unplugged: Data structures for searching

Lesson from CS Unplugged, University of Canterbury CSER Group, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes were made: translated and level-tagged by Open Cosmos, with AI. Shared under the same license.

Your path through Searching & sorting

Stop 16 The Great Number Hunt (Unsorted) Screen-free lesson Stop 17 Where is my hat? Screen-free lesson Stop 18 Binary search trees Screen-free lesson Stop 19 Data structures for searching (unit) Screen-free lesson

Explore next