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 GUIDES:
Don, Carolyn, and Bob ACCESSORIES:
- Starter: NetAdventure Encoder, printer and paper
- Super Challenge: ShockWave plug-in (easily available
on the web), NetAdventure Super EnDec Simulation (viewable in web browser)
- Mega Challenge: ShockWave plug-in (easily available on
the web), NetAdventure Super EnDec Simulation (viewable in web browser)
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Here is a secret message for you: OUHUJGLYZXZPMOEZXPJVZS.
What does it mean? You need to know the code. Would you like to send a secret message? If
so, you need some sort of code. Then, the person you are sending it needs some way to read
your message. Can you be sure that no one can break the code?
There are many, many kinds of codes. This adventure introduces just a few.
Use your own NetAdventure Encoder! This great little device has a disk that rotates
over a large one. There are 26 different codes on it, depending on how you rotate the top
disk. The rotating disk has all the letters A to Z. Next to each is the code letter. For
instance, when the disk is set to zero, the disk shows that you should write an E for each
A and write an R for B. This is called a "substitution code".
The problem with substitution codes is that if you have lots of code, you can guess the
letters. The most common letter in English is E, so all you have to know is what code
letter is most common. For instance, in the message above, one letter appears four
times--it is a good bet that it stands for E.
Related Ideas:
Visit these great web sites:
- Research how British cryptographers deciphered a telegram
from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von
Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German
cause at the National Archives and Records Administration: http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/zimmermann/zimmerma.html
- Martha Moore was born in 1735 in the small central
Massachusetts town of Oxford, but the real story of her life begins in Maine with the
diary she kept from age fifty. Decode Martha Ballard's diary at: http://www.dohistory.org/diary/exercises/decoding.html
- Learn some of the tricks code breakers use to solve ciphers,
then use your new talents to make sense of what looks like a bunch of gibberish by using
the companion Web site to "Decoding Nazi Secrets," a two-hour NOVA special at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/decoding/
- Investigate the code behind DNA and study mutations by
sending a DNA-o-gram to a friend that is coded in the language of life at: http://www.dna2z.com/DNA-o-gram/
Now try your hand at the NetAdventure EnDec Simulation! Click on Starter for the
easiest, Super for medium, and Mega for the hardest activity.
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