Start designing class activities by creating goals for what the students should learn from a particular activity. Ask yourself, “why would kids need to know this?”
Teach hierarchical task analysis using Requirement Cards to sort through 100 requirements engineers have created for a robot cleaning up a nuclear disaster.
Build a paper airplane instead of the PB&J exercise for a less messy, more extensible algorithms introduction activity.
Tie the importance of searching and sorting to internet search engines, then encourage students to create search mechanisms for data they want to analyze.
Because high-school students are interested in driving, transportation is a great model for introducing class hierarchies and interfaces.