CyberCivics: A Novel Approach to Reaching K-12 Students with the Social Relevance of Computer Science

This paper describes CyberCivics, a novel approach to computer science outreach that integrates hands-on computing experiences with the study of contemporary social and political issues. We provide details of one such curriculum, focused on electronic voting, that we used with a high school AP Government course in Spring 2007. We describe our experience with this curriculum and how it enabled us to reach a larger, more diverse and more academically prepared group of students than prior outreach efforts targeted directly at computing courses. We also suggest a number of alternative approaches to outreach based on the CyberCivics idea.