Aiming for Awesome: Code breaking

1958 - 1968 Code breaking

The aim of this resource is to give students the opportunity to investigate the impact of STEM on code breaking and security. 

Students will learn about espionage and the history of the 'Cold War' between the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and the Western Bloc (the USA and its NATO allies).  There was no fighting between the sides and secrecy and spying, or espionage, were a big part of the tensions.

Practical activities will see students coding, or encrypting, messages to keep them a secret from enemies.

Duration

The activities are expected to last 60 minutes.

What you'll need

The following items per student:

• Cardboard
• One copy of Code breaking support sheet
• One split pin

Student activities

Time to make: there are many ways to code, or encrypt, a message to keep it secret from your enemies.  One way to encrypt a message is to use a substitution cypher, which replaces one letter with another.  A step-by-step guide is provided for students to make their very own encryption machine to send a message using Caesar Shift 2.  For example 'a' becomes 'b', 'b' becomes 'c' and so on.  

Stretch and challenge: to ensure easy transfer of messages, the same encryption would be used for all messages in a day, changing at midnight each day.  The activity asks students to work out the right code to transcribe an intercepted message.  Once the code has been worked out, a series of messages are provided for students to de-code.