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This article describes a curricular activity that uses hardware and software for student agency. With IoT hardware and Dataflow software designed to be intuitive, InSPECT’s open-ended, technology-enhanced high school biology experiments facilitate inquiry and integrate computational thinking into core science content and practices. The modular hardware kit includes multiple components so high students have choices as they plan and perform their experiments. The kit includes programmable relays, plus CO2, light, temperature, humidity, and oxygen sensors. 

Computational tools are being integrated into science classrooms, but in ways that are often procedurally prescribed, constraining learner agency and ignoring student purposes and epistemic practices. We draw on theory and approaches from making-oriented education to introduce computational tinkering in science as a construct for thinking about and designing for learning with computational tools. Across two design research cycles in high school science classrooms, we analyze episodes of student activity to understand how practices of computational tinkering might translate from informal settings to formal science classrooms to enable learners to engage in practices that reflect authentic scientific work, draw upon learner experiences, and support more equitable participation in science. Looking across both student-centered and curricula-centered science classrooms for emergent goals, rapid iteration, and noticing and reflection, we saw computational tinkering take shape during moments of play, troubleshooting and tuning, and sharing. We discuss findings and implications for practice in relation to professional science practice and goals of science education in an era of computational ascendancy.