Unit 1 — Python Foundations
The core building blocks of programming — variables, conditionals, loops, functions, and more — all in service of one running project: a text adventure game that grows with every new concept you learn. By the end of this unit, you'll have a real, playable game in your portfolio.
Python is the starting point for new students to coding. If you already have programming experience and want to learn these basics in a different approved language, the Your Language track does exactly that.
Choose Your Track
This unit has three tracks. They aren't based on grade level, but on where you're starting from and which language you want to use. Use what came out of the Unit 0 diagnostic as your guide, then pick honestly: overselling yourself just means less support where you'll actually need it later. Not sure which fits? Ask your teacher before you start.
Core
You're new to programming, and this is the starting point for most students. You'll get a steady, guided pace through the fundamentals: variables, I/O, operators, conditionals, loops, functions, lists, strings, and debugging basics. Written in Python.
Start Core — Lesson 1.1Extended
You're already comfortable with the basics: a fast, diagnostic-driven review of the Core list, then deeper — classes and objects, dictionaries and sets, the VS Code debugger, try/except — while you begin mentoring a Core-track partner. Written in Python.
Start Extended — 1.EXT.1Your Language
You already have some programming experience, and you want to learn these basics in one of the approved languages instead of Python. You'll learn the same concepts and build the same game in that language.
Start Your LanguageWhat You'll Produce
Core: one evolving text adventure game, built across three checkpoints — Project 1A (character & first choice), 1B (a multi-room adventure loop), and 1C (inventory, plus debugging a planted-bug version of your own game).
Extended: the same adventure-game theme with a higher bar for the shared start (functions, input validation, a dictionary-based inventory), then a meaningfully different tiered project and an open self-directed stretch.
Your Language: the same adventure game as Core, built in your language, with a concept log that shows how your language writes each concept.