For gifted students grades 4-6
This cryptology course helps students explore how cryptographers protect sensitive information and crack the codes that can solve crimes. Students become fluent in the vocabulary of cryptology and use the shift cipher to encrypt and decrypt messages while deepening their mastery of arithmetic using the commutative, associative, and distributive properties, as well as square roots. The course also provides opportunity to develop expertise in primes, factors, and divisibility rules. Students learn procedure writing and become an atbash spreadsheet whizzes as they crunch numbers and formulas. Students secret puzzles by mastering the key word method, digital roots, affine ciphers, and modular inverses. With a mini-mystery at the close of the course, students can graduate from apprentice to bonafied agent, ready to work on missions as needed.
View the Duke TIP Cryptology Syllabus.
Head to the TIP Curriculum Archive to view all 10 lessons.
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