Advanced Topics in Computer Science
Unit 8: Graphs and Graph Theory
Students learn to model networks of relationships and solve problems involving paths, connectivity, and traversal.
Unit Focus
What this unit is really teaching
Graphs bring together sets, maps, queues, stacks, recursion, and algorithm efficiency in one major capstone unit.
Key Topics
- +Graph vocabulary: vertices, edges, degree, path, cycle, connected component, and weight
- +Adjacency lists, adjacency matrices, and edge lists
- +Depth-first search and breadth-first search
- +Connectivity, cycle detection, and path reconstruction
- +Shortest-path intuition, including Dijkstra-style priority queue thinking
- +Applications in social networks, maps, cybersecurity, robotics, and dependency systems
Practice Work
Implementation and analysis tasks
Student task
Build a graph traversal visualizer or route finder.
Student task
Analyze a network dataset and report connected components and shortest paths.
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Work through the concepts, code, edge cases, and runtime analysis with 1:1 guidance.