Scholars investigate the need for encryption as they read a portion of the book Blown to Bits and discuss encryption techniques. They finish by attempting to decode a message written using a Caesar cipher.

Data encryption is an important security measure for sensitive data stored on computers. Pupils learn how to utilize matrices for creating code. They also get a great review of matrix multiplication, inverse matrices, and the identity...

Students relate Cryptography to the solving of simultaneous linear equations in matrix notation. They explore various methods of encrypting and decrypting codes. Pupils discuss and solve simultaneous linear equations.

Students explore encryption. They discuss the importance of cryptography in our daily lives. Students use games and cryptography to discover transformational geometry and modulo systems. They design their own encryption puzzles and...

Third graders solve a cryptogram by decoding a message written with wingdings.  In this decoding lesson, 3rd graders solve a message related to magnetism.  Students have notes about magnets once they've finished.

Using matrix multiplication and inverse matrices, students are trying to uncode a coded message. Students encrypt simple messages using 2 x 2 matrices.

Turn students into detectives as they decipher encrypted messages.  Introduce your class to modular arithmetic and have a little fun encrypting and decoding secret messages. The activity does not hit many content standards, but...

Students brainstorm and discuss the concept of cryptography, the science of secrets in today's world and then focus on a system for sending secret messages used by Julius Caesar. They make a Caesar wheel assessing encrypting and...

Take a serious look at an equally serious topic! Security scholars explore and discuss the methods hackers use to gain access to personal information during a well-written digital citizenship activity. Part of an extensive series, the...

Sometimes free Wi-Fi comes with a hefty price tag! Networking novices examine the components of a Wi-Fi network during a digital citizenship lesson from an extensive series. Groups work together to map out a day's worth of Internet...

Young scholars explore online banking. In this online banking lesson, students discuss identity theft, direct deposit, encryption, and the Federal Reserve System. Young scholars participate in a game show activity where students ask and...

Students secure information online using cryptography. In this algebra lesson, students use RSA technology to encrypt information on the internet. They use modular reduction of natural numbers to understand prime number theory.

Students explore the history of cryptography. They assess function notation and transformation, matrix operations, and the fundamentals of modular arithmetic. Using graphing calculators, students develop their own encryption schemes.

Students participate in an activity that introduces them to the concept of binary coding as a language. They decode messages using special boards that has its own code for different letters. They create new codes by rearranging wires...

Students visualize a communication system. They encode, decode, transmit, receive and store messages. Students use a code sheet and flashlight for this process. They will also maintain a storage sheet from which they can retrieve...

Students role-play as soldiers rescuing lost mountain climbers. Working in teams, they interpret maps to locate the climbers and use flashlights to send and receive coded messages about the rescue. Their goal is to complete the task in...

Students use math to solve encrypted messages.

Scholars learn how to crack secret codes as they continue reading from the Blown to Bits and try to crack the random substitution cipher. They also begin learning about the Vigenere cipher. 

Beans are for more than just counting! Introduce public key cryptography with cups and beans and ask scholars to use the beans to send secret numbers. Participants learn how this activity relates to public key cryptography and...

Banks are responsible for keeping our financial information safe. Mathematics is what allows them to do just that! Pupils learn the math behind the cryptography that banks rely on. Using polynomial identities, learners reproduce the...

Pupils attempt to solve the Wireless Hotspot Problem and learn why it is considered a computationally hard problem in the ninth lesson of the series on 12. They also learn about one-way functions and how the Wireless Hotspot Problem is...

Investigate how public key cryptography works. Scholars continue their study of one-way functions and asymmetric keys and apply this information to public key cryptography. They use an app to explore public key cryptography and its...

Even computers find this to be a hard problem. In the eighth installment of a 12-part unit, young computer scientists learn about the traveling salesperson problem. They formulate algorithms to solve the problem and find out why it is...

Scholars explore the relationship between cipher keys and passwords and as they learn more about the Vigenere cipher and continue to read from the book Blown to Bits in the seventh lesson plan of the series. They conduct an activity...