Article: The Argument for Teaching Computer Science Without Computers

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-argument-for-teaching-computer-science-without-computers?trk_source=homepage-lede
http://csunplugged.org/

Excerpt:
Teaching computer science as a way of arranging reality rather than a way of arranging syntax or data structures—what's more appropriately known as programming or even coding—is among the arguments made by Thomas J. Cortina, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, in a recent issue of ACM Communications. His general point, which is only sketched here, is that we should be aggressively advancing programs like CS Unplugged, which is a kid-focused curriculum of sorts developed by a group at the University of Caterbury in New Zealand, with a stated goal being the teaching of computational principles rather than programming and technical details. It's a great idea.
By being physically part of the solution to a problem as it is being solved, kids learn from observations and experiences.
Activity examples range from teaching data compression via rhymes, graph theory via mud, finite state automata via pirates, and so on. It's surprisingly deep given the target audience (though maybe algebra and trig would seem that way too if we weren't so used to it).