This cipher was invented for the Hebrew alphabet, but it can work with any alphabet.  Many people believe it was used in the Bible and is older than Hieroglyphics! It was later adopted by other cultures, such as the Greeks and Romans, and used to encode messages in their respective languages. This lesson leads students the basics of cryptography.

There were many black women who worked as code breakers at Arlington Hall during World War II, including Elsie Scott, Sue Bailey Thurman, and Genevieve Collins. These women faced significant challenges and discrimination due to their race and gender, but they made significant contributions to the war effort through their work as code breakers.

This lesson plan can be used for teaching and reinforcing the idea of encryption for middle school students.

Students will examine the history and culture of the Choctaw Native Americans, as well as the story of the Code Talkers in WW1, in order to memorialize one of the Choctaw Code Talkers. 

The student or class will read about book ciphers and how they work.  Students will then be able to use a cipher provided to crack a secret message.  Teachers can edit the message to fit their needs and make adjustments as desired.  This is one mini lesson out of a series of five, this is lesson four and it can be completed alone, or with any of the other lessons.

Women code-breakers changed the course of WWII by cracking Japanese codes that revealed the movements of people and supplies in the Pacific Islands. In this lesson, students will learn how specific information discovered led to a turning point when cryptographers were able to pinpoint the plans of the Pearl Harbor Attack’s “architect”, Admiral Yamomoto.Students will examine videos and articles to find out more about this episode in history. In pairs or small groups, they’ll look at the US Post Office’s newly revealed stamp commemorating it. They’ll identify what they think are the pros and cons of the stamp and then design their own. 

This breakout activity provides teachers and students an interactive way to demonstrate their learning about cryptography, code-breaking, and historic ciphers. Clues are provided, along with additional hints you can choose to provide to students so that students solve ciphers and learn what time their army is planning to raid the enemy camp.

In this lesson, students will learn about one of the most significant and successful spy rings in American History. They will also actually conduct some of the same techniques and demonstrate them to the rest of the class.

American performer Josephine Baker used her star-status access to spy for the Allies in WWII and convey information to the Allies by using invisible ink on her sheet music. We’ll look at a few methods that can be used to hide messages “in plain sight”?

Students will learn about Mask Letters and their use in the Revolutionary War, then they will make masks and messages of their own and discuss the pros and cons of this method of sending and receiving secret messages. 

During WWII the Marines enlisted Navajo code talkers to send messages. The Navajo language is not written down and is very difficult for non-native speakers to speak and understand. The Marines started with 29 Navajo men for this project. Their code became unbreakable and fast. They could decode 3 lines of English in 20 seconds versus the normal 30 minutes.In this lesson students will hear audio of spoken Navajo language. They will make predictions on what language they think is being spoken. After learning the language they will research the Navajo code breakers. Students will then use the Navajo dictionary to practice creating and deciphering messages. Students will then be able to make connections to cybersecurity. 

Students will use a letter Paul Revere wrote to learn how he worked to keep meetings secret and warn the colonists that the British army was on their way.  

During the American Revolution, the Patriots relied on sending coded messages to prevent the British from understanding the actions of the Continental Army. George Washington’s army used this cipher– though it is not a very secure system in its original form. The Patriots adapted it by using a randomized arrangement of the alphabet. This cipher was also used to some extent during the US Civil War.