Community Outreach

The Department of Computer Science at UNC-Chapel Hill hosts approximately 1,500 visitors each year for various outreach activities. Our main areas of outreach include demonstrations for group visits, enabling technology demonstrations, collaborative outreach, conferences & competitions.

Department Visits

Middle School and High School Open House

As a part of the department’s outreach program, we invite high school and middle school students from across the state to visit and experience the exciting world of computer science. During our Open House event, school and extracurricular groups can participate in hands-on demonstrations, visit research labs to find out what computing is all about and talk with current students about why they chose computer science at Carolina.

High school students and their parents can register to attend information sessions about computer science at UNC. These sessions are typically led by either the department chair or the director of undergraduate studies and feature a panel of student ambassadors.

The event will take place in Sitterson Hall and Brooks Building. Our address is 201 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. We welcome both groups and individuals to this event.

While you’re here, we hope you will enjoy your time on campus and check out Franklin Street for a local lunch!

UNC Science Expo

The North Carolina Science Festival is a multi-day celebration showcasing science and technology.

As part of the North Carolina Science Festival, the University and Morehead Planetarium and Science Center host the UNC Science Expo on a Saturday in early April. Visitors have the chance to tour labs, speak to scientists, and participate in many hands-on science activities.

For a schedule of the Science Expo, check the Morehead Planetarium website.

Women in Computer Science

The Department’s outreach places special emphasis on increasing the number of women in Computer Science. We partner with the Women and Mathematics (WAM) mentoring program which has brought more than 400 eighth-grade girls and their mentors to the Department to watch demos and also to discuss computer science with female faculty members and graduate students.

Enabling Technology

Tar Heel Reader

Tar Heel Reader is a website designed to help teachers make easy-to-read books for children with disabilities, using the publishing platform WordPress and Creative Commons images from Flickr.

Hark the Sound

Hark the Sound is a collection of free audio games for the web. Games have speech, sound, and graphics for players of all ages and abilities.