Leveraging Food to Achieve 100% Student Retention in an Intro CS Course

This paper examines how food-focused activities have influenced African American female students’ development of algorithmic thinking. We have developed the It’s All in the Mix food module as part of an introductory Computer Science (CS) course at an all-female liberal arts college. It’s All in the Mix currently consists of a set of integrated food activities that expose students to algorithmic thinking — the ability to design, implement, adapt and assess algorithms. Utilizing recipes as exemplars of algorithms, It’s All in the Mix bridges the gap between African American female students’ enactment of algorithms in everyday settings and algorithms in an introductory CS course. Consequently, we achieve 100% retention of African American female students enrolled in the introductory CS course.