Student slideshow: English | Spanish

Teacher printout: English & Spanish

Alan Turing, Codebreaker

In this reading, students learn how mathematician Alan Turing helped break secret codes during WWII.

• Activity: Secret Bells If you need to be convinced that sound can actually travel through a string, try this activity from San Francisco’s Exploratorium. With a string and a spoon, you can make amazing music that only you can hear.

• Activity: Going around corners Suppose you have a paper cup telephone that’s working great in the hall, where the string is straight. Then your friend ducks into a room and the string has to go around a corner. The phone stops working! Can you figure out how to get it working again? This is a tough engineering challenge. Think about what changes when you go around a corner. What might be stopping the vibrations from traveling down the string?
  If you want to see solutions that other people have come up with, check this site.

• Discussion/Activity: Paper cup telegraph Suppose you keep making the string on your paper cup telephone longer and longer. At some distance, you can hear your friend talking — but you can’t tell what they are saying.
  Can you think of a way to send a message when your friend can hear you, but can’t understand the words? Can you use a pattern of sounds to send a message without words?
  If you’d like to see our ideas on how to do this, you’ll find them here.

You can elaborate student learning and engagement with Mystery Science mini-lessons.

• How do phones work? In this mini-lesson, students learn about early communication, how messages were sent in years past, and how telephones work today.

If you are in an NGSS state, this mini-lesson supports the DCI PS4.C: Information Technology and Instrumentation