Computation is the act of calculating or working through a problem using mathematical or logical steps. When you multiply 347 times 28 on paper, you're performing a computation. When a scientist uses equations to figure out how fast a rocket needs to travel to reach Mars, that's computation too.

Computation involves following clear rules or procedures to get from a question to an answer. Sometimes it's simple, like adding up the cost of three items at a store. Sometimes it's incredibly complex, like when computers perform billions of computations per second to display a video game or predict tomorrow's weather.

While we often think of computation as something computers do, people have been performing computations for thousands of years using tools like abacuses, slide rules, and pencil and paper. What makes something a computation is the systematic, step-by-step process of working toward a solution. A wild guess isn't computation, but carefully working through long division is.

Today, computational thinking means breaking big problems into smaller, manageable steps that can be solved one at a time. When you're trying to figure out the fastest route to visit five friends' houses, you're using computational thinking.