Developing a Modular and Interactive Blockchain Learning Tool for Undergraduate Computer Science Programs

With blockchain technology being increasingly adopted by significant segments in industry and government, it is important to expose more students to blockchain concepts in undergraduate curricula. Among the challenges with this task are the inherent complexity of blockchain based designs and the limited resources in both time and personnel in a computer science program. The purpose of this project is to design and implement a modular, publicly available learning tool that will facilitate teaching fundamental computer science concepts using a blockchain environment. We started by successfully embedding blockchain elements in two courses at the freshman and sophomore levels as week-long modules in spring 2022. Our goal is to cover the most important aspects of a blockchain by injecting material in 7-8 existing computer science courses.