Computer Science Unplugged

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

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

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.

In this computer science activity about finite-state automaton (on page 45 of the PDF), learners use a map and choose various pathways to find Treasure Island.

In this activity, learners will explore how product barcodes are scanned accurately and be able to "guess" the last number in a 13 digit barcode correctly every time.

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

This activity about cryptographic techniques illustrates a situation where information is shared, and yet none of it is revealed.

In this activity, learners play a game similar to Hangman by guessing a secret phrase to understand how computer scientists measure the amount of "information" in a document.

In this activity, one person acts as a human robot while another acts as their developer by programming their actions.