August 1, 2005

Today's class was taught by Matt Lathrop, who was filling in for Bethany Hudnutt while she was out of town. To get things started he had the class write down answers to various questions about themselves. Their responses were then handed to one of their classmates. Each student had to figure out whose responses they had been given by asking the other students the answers to the questions. Once they had gotten to know each other better, they were ready to begin the day's lesson.

The first activity for today was graphing. Matt had the students graph different equations and then discuss the similarities and differences between them. Using Function Flyer and their own discussions the class was able to discover patterns in graphing. They noticed that the graph of y=x+3 was very similar to the graph of y=x+5; in fact it was the same line shifted down 2 units. They also noticed that when a number was multiplied by x, i.e. y=3*x, it increased the slope of the graph.

After a snack break the class delved into code breaking. Using the Caesar Cipher activities the class explored the encryption and decryption of messages. Once they had mastered code breaking with Caesar Cipher II, many students went on to try out Caesar Cipher III and Decode de Code.