Resistance: DECODED
Set Up:
You need:
For the class one locked box. Currently the set up ends with a 3 digit lock set to 8-5-6. You could easily switch out one of the 4 digit locks, such as the Gods file, if you want to use a 4 digit physical lock.
For each student 1 copy of the intro letter (slide 3)
For each group copies of: (I put these in a manila folder marked CLASSIFED)
-3 spinner pieces (or completed spinner)
-5 reading sheets (slides 4-8)
For each group a link to the digital locks file:
Copy the file to your drive so your network doesn’t block your students from using it:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1a7b7HE3rfWRWBwjKb-EUfwUUAJ4v6lksaMCx-SAH1ZM/copy?usp=sharing
Some number of wood block pyramid puzzles for the final challenge. Having an equal number as you have groups is ideal but, obviously, more costly. I used relatively cheap 2-piece puzzles. Slightly more complicated ones would be better. Search Amazon!
https://amzn.to/2TvrDo7. These go into the locked box. I purchased 3 with the idea that only a few groups would reach the box before one solved the puzzle and the challenge ended.
The first group to get the puzzle and successfully build their pyramid wins the challenge.
A Mayan Breakout
Lock Combinations
Lockbox Puzzle:
6. 856 (math)
Flow
Intro video (https://vimeo.com/381202029) -> all read intro letter -> break into groups, provide information sheets -> use clues to open digital locks (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13Vpcpexu3R063sWtM9PuZSQI4diCt1rmJOe-d4STS2k/copy?usp=sharing) -> use Lockbox puzzle to get combination -> open lockbox with combination lock > use blocks to build pyramid -> first group to do so wins!
For a more detailed lesson plan visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1--wcB2nxmBx_rQucHp3bpw-jP1jVtqlj85J6yLYwUTE/copy?usp=sharing
Agents,
You’ve learned how shockingly advanced the Mayans were. Like us today they had a language based not on pictures but on syllables, math built around zero and a deep understanding of time and space. Your instructor mentioned that some believe the Mayans were visited by aliens who provided them with this knowledge. That is, of course, ridiculous.
One of our agents has a theory. She believes that someone has traveled back from our time to provide them with this knowledge – perhaps the same terrorists who stole our Time Machine and are causing the Fractures. If the Mayans became the ultimate power in the Americas the United States as you know it would never exist. This sounds as crazy as aliens but there’s no question that there are more Fractures in the Mayan epoch than any other.
One problem in solving this case is that nearly all of the Mayan texts were destroyed. History tells us it was the Spanish priests who did it but what if the terrorists were just trying to cover their tracks?
The other problem is that the Mayan writing and math systems are shockingly complex. For you to truly learn about the Mayans and determine who provided them with this knowledge you will have to crack their codes.
You will be working with a small team of agents to learn about the Mayan culture and achievements so you can repair the Fractures and, hopefully, track down the source of their technology and maybe the terrorists themselves.
The team that successfully breaks into the code box will be greatly rewarded.
Good luck.
Sincerely,
Instructor Lafayette
Department of Timeline Security
Lafayette
Glyphs
A glyph is a picture that represents something else. In some cases, like with most natives tribes in America, they represented full words or phrases. In a lot of ways they are just like emojis.
Early in their history the Mayans used glyphs in the same way. Glyphs represented words ranging from tree to king. They quickly learned though that carving out one word at a time was very inefficient. They started combining glyphs to form much more complex ideas. For example:
These two glyphs stuck together could mean many different things.
“The small child joyfully smushed pizza all over his face.”
“The teenager has a pizza face, but he’s cool with it.”
“I am satisfied because I ate some wonderful, cheesy, pepperoni pizza.”
That’s the power of compound glyphs. Two glyphs can make an entire phrase. It is also, however, the challenge as they can be hard to decode.
---------------------------------------
🍼
🎲
💸
🌝
🍕
🎻
👩
😍
💑
🔮
__ __ __ __ __
0 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
You try it! Put the “glyphs” below together to form the phrase:
I am in love with a girl who plays violin named Lindsey Stirling. I see us getting married in the future.
🌝
🍕
Mayan Numbers
The Mayan number system was built around just three numbers: 0, 1 and 5. The use of zero was the key to doing amazing mathematical calculations that really set the Mayans apart.
0 1 5
The big difference with their system is that it is based on the number 20 – not on 10 like ours today. Making numbers up to 19 is easy.
2 7 13 19
1+1 1+1+5 1+1+1+5+5 1+1+1+1+5+5+5
After 19 it gets… different. First of all, their numbers are written up and down, not side to side like ours. So, when you add place value you add it on top of the number.
Secondly, as you can see, they don’t have a 1s, 10s, 100s, etc. place. They go by 20s so they have 1s, 20s, 400s, 8000s, etc. Each place value is 20 times larger than the one before it. So, here’s the glyph for 168,421, which is really complex in our system:
Amazing, right? This system allowed the Mayans to write ridiculous large numbers with very simple representation. Now, prove you learned it. What number is this?
20(1)
+ 1(1)
20(2)
+ 1(12)
20(12)
+ 1(0)
22 52 240
160,000s
8,000s
400s
20s
1s
Mayan Gods
The Mayans frequently wrote about visitors from space, their gods, bringing them knowledge. Some have speculated these could have been references to aliens, but what if it was our time traveling terrorist? Let’s analyze some of these gods.
This is the Mayan drawing of the god Kukulkan. Kukulkan is known as the “feathered serpent” and is often seen as the god of the wind and sky. Like many Mayan gods though he plays a much larger role. Kukulkan is part of the original Mayan creation story and prophecy says he will return to the Mayans one day. That’s why his temple at Chichen Itza shows the shadow of a snake coming down from the sky twice a year. Could this be about the return of the time traveler? Perhaps he visited the Mayans many times.
Little else is known of Kukulkan since most of the Mayan texts were destroyed. He does also shows up in Aztec mythology as Quetzalcoatl showing that this god, whoever he was, was very important to the people of Latin America.
Here are four more Mayan gods. Try to determine what each was the god of.
_____ _____ ____
3. God of the Jungle and Corn 4. God of the Sun
Kukulkan
Mayan Astronomy
17
29
20
12
81
56
04
38
Somehow the Mayans also knew incredible things about time and space. The Mayan calendar, for example, stated that the length of a year was 365.2 days while modern science, using the most advanced technology available, puts it shockingly close at 365.24 days. The Mayans used a second calendar based on their gods to create their Long Count calendar that tracks time over a massive 5,125 year period! Their tracking of time and space was so precise that today their predictions of the movement of the moon are off by only about 35 seconds. Wow!
Even their towns and building were designed with the planets in mind. Many of their most important temples are built in perfect alignment with celestial markers. The temple of Kukulkan in Chichen Itza, for example, aligns so perfectly with the sun that two days a year a shadow is made on the front steps that makes it look like a squirming snake is going down the stairs. It is not a coincidence that the Mayans believe Kukulkan had the body of a snake.
Besides the sun and moon the two most important planets to the Mayans were Venus and Jupiter. Venus represented the God of War, clearly an important god to the Maya. Jupiter and it’s moons represented the gods of the 9 Mayan underworlds. Mayan stories from more than 2,000 years ago record the placement, movement and even changing colors of these planets – all without the power of the telescope. How could the Mayans possible have done this alone?
The Mayan Calendar Round
The Mayan writing system was also very complex. At first, historians thought it was just a simple picture system like the other natives of America. Later we learned that they were compound glyphs consisting of multiple images to make a single word or phrase.
However, even that doesn’t tell the full story. The Mayans didn’t just use pictures. In fact, by the end, they didn’t seem to use pictures much at all. Instead, the pictures represented sounds, just like in our language today. The sounds would stack together to make full words, again, just like in our language today. We call these sounds syllables.
Here’s a complete Mayan glyph:
That probably doesn’t make any sense so here’s a couple of more modern examples of how it would have worked.
wiseman pineapple
The pictures represent sounds, those sounds together make words. This advanced style of writing allows for the creation of millions of words with only handful of symbols, only 26 in our alphabet for example. Let’s see if you can figure it out!
W
K
Syllabic Writing
W + IZE + MAN
PINE + AHHH + PULL
17
29
20
12
17
29
20
12
81
56
04
38
81
56
04
38
81
56
04
38
81
56
04
38
+
=
Now that you’ve proven you understand Mayan codes you have one last challenge to complete. Can you build like them? Take one pair of blocks back to your group. Be sure to relock the box, other groups are right behind you! �Use those two blocks to build a pyramid. When you are done have everyone in your group raise your hands. The first group to finish wins a reward.
map