On February 16th, Dr. Sharon Robbert from Trinity Christian College led our second meeting of 2017. The topic was Cryptography and Dr. Robbert led our group on a classical Whodunit mystery. Throughout the session, we learned how to use different cryptography systems to solve clues to solve the mystery.
Some of the cryptographic elements discussed during the session included scytales, rail fence ciphers, shift ciphers, vigenere ciphers, one time pads, substitution ciphers, and more.
We ended the session with suggestions for how we can implement cryptography into our classrooms. Cryptography is a great way to engage students and connect to a variety of mathematical fields including, geometric measurement, modular arithmetic, statistics and frequency analysis, number theory and more.
Thanks Sharon for a great session!
Our next Math Circle Meeting won’t be until May 18th*6:00-8:30 pm at Lewis University. RSVP here: https://goo.gl/forms/iS5Bu8gj7ARPQ6vC3
See you next time!
*Due to K-12 testing schedules and spring breaks