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The STEMAZing Project: Human Computers – Creative Message Communication

Turn your students into human computers who can code a message, send it to another human computer who can use parity to check it for errors, correct the errors, and then decode the secret message!

Believe it or not, there is a five-letter word encoded in the cards shown in the image.

Start with lessons on the binary number system. Then, learn how computers use parity bits for error detection and correction. Finally, then learn how you can send messages back and forth using cardboard cards or cards with 0 and 1 printed on them.

Learn about ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) and even extend this learning into an ASCII art and animation lesson. Here you will find a video showing how this lesson works and a document with everything you need to know including pages which can be printed out with the ASCII alphabet, the grid – useful for remote learning, and the ASCII art extension.

The #STEMAZing Project has a series of lessons related to binary numbers in the Binary #MicDropMath Lessons collection. While all these lessons can stand on their own, in a perfect world with eons of time to engage students, the following would be the recommended sequence:

• Binary #MicDropMath Patterns
• Binary #MicDropMath Build Your Own Cards
• Binary #MicDropMath Multiply This
• Human Computers – Creative Message Communication
These can all be found here: https://stemazing.org/binary-mic-drop-math-lessons/


Early Childhood, K-6, Educator
Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade
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