Investigating variations using the Sorting Network
Children try the sorting network with repeated numbers and with things that are not numbers, like heights.
Steps
- Remind the class how the network works: meet in a box, smaller to the left, bigger to the right.
- Variation 1: use cards where two numbers are the same. Ask what happens when two equal cards meet. (It does not matter who goes where.)
- Ask the class to predict the ending, then run it. The equal cards end up next to each other.
- Variation 2: ask what else we could sort. Try heights, colours, or sizes.
- Run the network with one of those and check the result.
- Talk about what stayed the same each time.
Talk about it
- Did you guess right?
- What can you sort besides numbers?
- Why does the network still work?
CC BY-SA 4.0
Adapted from CS Unplugged by the University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research Group (CS Unplugged), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Original lesson, with pictures · License: CC BY-SA 4.0
There are no pictures here. The original lesson has the pictures and printables.
Changes made: Simplified, shortened and translated by Open Cosmos with AI
This adapted lesson is shared under the same license (CC BY-SA 4.0).