Coding Maps: A Distance Laboratory on Computational Thinking Inspired by Modal Logic

We present the Coding Maps project carried out by a team of students and teachers of the Computer Science Bachelor’s degree of the University of Genoa, aimed at the creation of a computational thinking distance laboratory for the 2021 edition of the Genoa Science Festival. The main challenge for the team was to create an activity that could be engaging for students of different ages (middle and high school) exploiting the digital skills on remote learning acquired during the pandemics. The team adopted the metaphor of gamification and interactive applications via an online multiplayer platform in combination with more traditional computer science orientation approaches based on computational thinking and problem solving. The structure of the proposed activity was inspired to non standard logic languages such as modal logic and the corresponding possible worlds semantics in which the truth of an assertion depends on the accessibility relation among different worlds.