Lesson plan at a glance...

In this lesson plan…

• Lesson Overview
• Materials and Equipment
• Preparation Tasks
• The Lesson
• Learning Objectives and Standards
• Additional Information and Resources

Prepare display-ready copies of the sentences and numeric sequences for Activity 1

3 to 5 minutes

Complete all steps in the Spreadsheet Preparation document

5 to 10 minutes

Confirm that your computer is on and logged-in

1 to 5 minutes

Confirm that your projector is turned on and is projecting properly

1 to 5 minutes

Confirm that all students’ computers are turned on, logged-in, and connected to the Internet

1 to 10 minutes

Warm-up Activity: Sending lots of information using very little data

20 minutes

Activity 1: Breaking the code - finding the pattern

20 minutes

Wrap-up Activity: Finding more sources of data

10 to 20 minutes

Notes to the Teacher:

A group of scientists decided that the Arecibo Message would contain 210 bytes of data (about 12 seconds of an MP3) and contain approximately 7 pieces of information. In the late 1980s text messages were limited should to only 160 bits of data (letters, numbers, symbols - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/05/invented-text-messaging.html). Twitter later shortened the available message space to 140 so the user ID could be sent as well.

Activity:

After opening and completing the steps in the Spreadsheet Preparation document for this lesson, walk through the following steps with your students:

1. Give each student a number so they know which cell in Column A to use.
2. Prompt students to add the information to their cell they think is most important for others to know about them, while staying within the 160-character limit.
3. After everyone is finished, the class can look over the information and see how contextual it is.

Assessment:

After completing the activity, have the students answer the following questions:

Q1: Would someone who is from outside your school/age/city/state/country/planet know what you are talking about?

Q2: How difficult was it to send information when you only had a little bit of data?

Q3: What could you do to get more information into your text?

Q4: Do you feel like your “text message” conveyed enough information for people to get to know you? 

Q5: Before email and social networking, people wrote letters to “Pen Pals,” people all over the world. How well could you get to know someone well only through letters? How long would it take?

Notes to the Teacher:

The ability to see patterns is what makes science and math possible. Sometimes data does not initially look meaningful, and it is necessary to decompose it and try to discover any regularity or logic to it. Some data is meant to be understood by everyone like a newspaper, our DNA or a calendar. Other data is meant to be kept secret and encryption or coding is used to make it difficult to understand.

Activity:

Start by providing your students with the following three sentences. Two of the sentences are made up of random letters, the third translates to a real sentence by substituting one letter for another

1. YMNX   NX    YMJ    WJFQ     XJSYJSHJ        Translation: This is the real sentence
2. LMP    KIXIK    IQ    IIP    VBJQU                Translation: GHK FDSDF DL DDK QWELP
3. EJW VFF UTNZ ALYDI I KJV                        Translation: ZER QAA POIU VGTYD D FEQ

Next, provide your students with the following numbers to determine if there is a pattern and what it is.

1. 1   3   6   10   15     21                Answer: Triangular Numbers 1+2=3 3+3=6 6+4=10
2. 1   2   6   24  120   720                Answer: 1!=1   2!=2   3!=6   4!=24  5!=120  6!=720
3. 2   3   7   11   17     21                Answer: No pattern (that I am aware of)
4. 3   3   6    9    15     24                Answer: A Fibonacci-like sequence: 3+3=6 3+6=9 6+9=15

Teaching Tip:

• At the end of the activity, remind students that while data may not seem to have a pattern, it could just be very difficult to discover.

Notes to the Teacher:

• Mathematicians have been trying to find a pattern in the digits of pi (3.1415....) and in the primes (1,3,5,7,11,13...) for most of recorded history.
• Astronomers have for centuries attempted to make a calendar that was 100% accurate.
• Geneticists are looking for patterns in the genome to find causes for conditions and traits.
• Statisticians look at tremendous amounts of data to attempt to predict the outcome of sporting events, weather, the stock market, and more.

Assessment:

Informally assess students’ progress in discovering the patterns in the data.

Activity:

Ask students to respond to the following prompts in their journal:

• List 3 new examples of data that they had not thought of before class.
• Describe how data might be used in a future career they are considering.

Ask students to share some of their responses with the class or with a neighbor.

Assessment:

Informally examine students’ journal responses.

Learning Objectives

Standards

LO1: Students will be able to create data that conforms to the given constraints, including the information that they judge to be most important.

Common Core

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Computer Science

CSTA L2.CT.7: Represent data in a variety of ways including text, sounds, pictures and numbers.

UK 3.6: Understand how instructions are stored and executed within a computer system; understand how data of various types (including text, sounds and pictures) can be represented and manipulated digitally, in the form of binary digits.

LO2: Students will be able to discover patterns in provided data.

Common Core

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Computer Science

AUSTRALIA 10.4 (Collecting, managing and analyzing data): Analyse and visualise data to create information and address complex problems; and model processes, entities and their relationships using structured data.

CSTA L3B.CT.9: Analyze data and identify patterns through modeling and simulation.

LO3: Students will be able to give examples of where and how data is used.

Common Core

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Computer Science

CSTA L2.CT.7

UK 3.6

Term

Definition

For Additional Information

Data

Information that is not yet interpreted. Anything we can see, hear, smell, touch, taste is data. Data can be transmitted from one place to another and stored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data

Information

Data placed into a context that can be understood. Information allows us to make decisions. One could see a table of numbers and not care one bit, but once it is understood that these numbers are your medical lab results indicating your quality of health, it is possible to make decisions based on that information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

Bit

A unit of memory, the smallest information possible (1 or 0, yes or no, etc). eight bits equal a byte, one-million bytes equal a megabyte, one-thousand megabytes equal a gigabyte, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit

Concept

Definition

Abstraction

Identifying and extracting relevant information to define main idea(s)

Data Analysis

Making sense of data by finding patterns or developing insights

Pattern Recognition

Observing patterns and regularities in data

Contact info

For more info about Exploring Computational Thinking (ECT), visit the ECT website (g.co/exploringCT)

Credits

Developed by the Exploring Computational Thinking team at Google and reviewed by K-12 educators from around the world.

Last updated on

07/02/2015

Copyright info

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.