Search Results

This activity shows learners how computers use numbers to represent pictures. A grid is used to represent the pixels (short for picture elements) of a computer screen.

This activity explores the main algorithms that are used as the basis for searching on computers, using different variations on the game of battleships.

This activity introduces the idea that computer scientists measure information by how "surprising" a message is.

This activity introduces the idea of "divide and conquer" using a fictitious but serious problem--a pair of dirty socks has accidentally been wrapped in one of the presents that Santa is about to deli

This activity helps students learn how computers "compress" text by identifying repeating patterns of letters, words, and phrases.

In this puzzle, learners investigate the decisions involved in linking a network between houses in a muddy city.

In this activity, learners help a poor cartographer color in the countries on a map, making sure each country is colored a different color than any of its neighbors.

In this activity, learners listen to songs and decode hidden messages based on the same principle as a modem. As a final challenge, learners decode the binary messages in a music video.

This magic trick is based on how computers detect and correct data errors.

This activity lets learners participate in the process of reconstructing a phylogenetic tree and introduces them to several core bioinformatics concepts, particularly in relation to evolution.

This activity about cryptographic techniques illustrates how to accomplish a simple, but nevertheless seemingly impossible task—making a fair, random choice by flipping a coin between two people who d

In this activity, learners make their own encrypted code to pass along secret messages using a printable cipher wheel.

In this pencil and paper activity, learners work in pairs and simulate how astronomical spacecraft and computers create images of objects in space.

In this activity, learners create their own weather forecast map.

In this math activity (Page 17 of the Play Ball! PDF), learners play a game of "baseball" and analyze the results of the game.

In this activity about encryption, learners cut out a secret decoder badge from a handout and use it to encode messages to each other.