The field of computer science (CS) is facing a crucial challenge in broadening participation and embracing diversity, especially among underrepresented gender groups. The presented interdisciplinary educational program is an efficient response to this challenge, designed to catalyze diversity in CS through engagement with complex, interest-driven problems. This paper outlines the program's structure, elucidates the pedagogical underpinnings, and reflects on the emergent challenges and opportunities. We delve into how the fusion of CS with other academic disciplines can allure a more varied demographic, emphasizing the engagement of female high school students-a demographic pivotally positioned yet significantly untapped in CS. Through a systematic survey analysis, we measure the program's efficacy in increasing interest in CS and in cultivating an appreciation for its application in addressing real-world, cross-disciplinary challenges. Our findings affirm the program's success in bridging the engagement gap by leveraging students' intrinsic interests, thus charting alternative pathways into the CS field. These insights underscore the critical role of interdisciplinary approaches, establishing anew standard for transformative CS educational methods.

This study explores the perspectives of high school computer science (CS) teachers on students' interest in the subject. Using structured interviews, we identified factors that may influence students' interest in CS, such as curriculum design, teaching methods, and the use of materials and technology in the classroom. The findings reveal the importance of making CS relevant and exciting to students to increase engagement and understanding and promote acceptance of the subject in society. Additionally, the study highlights the challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary teaching of CS and the value of pre-designed teaching materials in supporting this approach. The presented study provides valuable insights for educators and policymakers looking to promote and sustain students' interest in CS. Overall, the study emphasizes the crucial role of CS education (CSEd) in preparing students for success in a digital world.

In computer science education (CSEd) it is a well-known challenge to create learning environments in which everyone can experience equal opportunities to identify themselves with the subject, get involved, and feel engaged. Especially for underrepresented groups such as girls or not computer enthusiasts, CSEd seems to lack sufficient opportunities at its current state. In this paper, we present a novel approach of using interdisciplinary online courses in the context of bee mortality and discuss the possibilities of such courses to enhance diverse learning in CSEd. We report summarized findings from a one-year period, including 16 workshops where over 160 secondary school students (aged 10-16) have participated in our online courses. Pre-test-post-test surveys have been conducted to gain insights into students' perceptions and attitude changes. The results show the potential of such interdisciplinary approaches to spark interest in computer science (CS) and to raise positive feelings toward programming. Particularly striking are the results from differentiated analyses of students grouped by characteristics such as low initial self-efficacy, coding aversion, or less computer affinity. We found multiple significant effects of our courses to impact students of those groups positively. Our results clearly indicate the potential of interdisciplinary CSEd to address a more diverse audience, especially traditionally underrepresented groups.

Computer science education at its current state lacks sufficient opportunities for young women to identify themselves with the subject. My research involves the investigation of interdisciplinary online courses enriched with gamification elements to create engaging learning environments that promote diversity in computer science education.

A computer-based information system is implicitly or explicitly subject to the labelling problem - identifying the real-world object and establishing its cross-reference to its modelling entity stored in the database. Labelling errors in blood production process are very serious defects and pose great threats to blood safety, patient safety and the society. Yet, evidence shows that there are still blood donation centres using software with no measures at all or only insufficient ones against such errors. One of the possible causes why the software designer has failed to address this problem is the design barrier put up by computer's obvious limitation on its ability to access user's actions and circumstances. A better understanding of the user's role in a computer-based information system helps the software designer break through this barrier and encourages him to seek better solutions.