| Spy Game |
| The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the world of espionage. Students form groups and attempt to explain, via the use of their spies, what is happening in the other group. Within their own group, the students must communicate a brief story or description (see below) to another member of the group, while the spies from the other group listen in. The two stories being communicated by the two opposing groups are closely related: they are really the same scenario seen from two very different view points. Students will see how, in espionage, everyday objects and occurrences can contain vast amounts of information. There are questions (a, b, c, and d) for the spies to answer when they are listening in. These questions serve to direct the spies' listening and to prompt them later when they describe the story the eavesdropped on to their home group. Complexity can be added to this activity by having the spies send the answers to the questions back to the home group not in person but via a coded message. The home groups will be able to look at the questions and must decode the answers. Sample codes: A=1, B=2.....Z=26 A=Z, B=Y....Z=A The two questions found after each set of the spy questions are to be asked by the teacher during discussion after the activity has run its course. Greenman Agent X was first seen completing a transaction with Greenman, the informant. The two met at a caf�. Agent X was the first to arrive, and she sat at the bar. Greenman arrived about 15 minutes later, and sat at a table. No contact of any kind was made between the two for 5 minutes. Greenman then casually walked to the bar and sat to the left of agent X, but not right beside her. Agent X struck up a conversation with the bartender, and the two talked for 3 minutes. Immediately after this had finished, Greenman left the caf�. The time was 4:45. This kind of meeting is a common occurrence for Greenman, who has agents speak to a bystander and convey the intelligence to him in this way. Though the conversation seems normal to the bystander, it contains coded information that Greenman can interpret. �Greenman� Questions (one word answers) a) What is Greenman�s job? b) Who did he meet with? c) Where did they meet? d) When did Greenman leave? Do you know that the meeting happened? Do you know that Greenman exists? An Odd Conversation (Imagine that you are telling some co-workers what happened to you) I was making my usual rounds around the Old Town and I suddenly bumped into this woman. She totally didn�t know where she was going. She felt really stupid and she was talking like crazy. She was telling me all kinds of stuff, like about her son and this trip she was going to go on. She said she was going to Berlin, then Vienna, then Moscow. And there was this weird guy wearing a green trench coat. He kept hanging around so I thought maybe they knew each other, but then he just left. Oh yeah, she kept telling me that her son was turning three in five weeks, like she wanted me to send a cake or something. �An Odd Conversation� Questions (one word answers) a) Did the speaker know the person he or she met? b) What�s the first place the person will go to on her trip? c) What colour was the trench coat? d) How old will the son be in five weeks? Was anything really important said in the conversation? Do you know that the conversation took place? Torte We have developed a new way of conveying numerical information in secret. It involves making that very famous Viennese cake, the Torte, in a meticulous way. There are various parts of the cake that refer to numbers. For example, it can have two, three, four, or five layers; layers can be 4, 3, or 2 centimeters thick; and it can weigh 2,200 grams, 1500 grams, or 1200 grams. The agent who receives the cake will make all necessary measurements and record them. The agent is advised not to eat the cake, as it will not have been made under sanitary conditions. The numbers resulting from the measurements can be entered into the code machine. The machine will decode the measurements to retrieve the numerical data. This data will automatically be re-encoded and transmitted to headquarters. �Torte� Questions (one word answers) a) What contains the coded information? b) What is one part of it that can be changed? c) What is the least it can weigh? d) What kind of machine is used? Why would they use a cake to carry information? Why would the information be re-encoded before being sent? Ugly Cake Someone left a really stupid looking cake on my desk this morning. It was this huge chocolate thing. It must have been made by an animal. It must have weighed more than two kilos. Who ever made it decided to put in five layers. This kind of cake is only supposed to have two. And each layer was super thick. I just threw it in the garbage bin in the cafeteria cause it didn�t look like it was made by a normal person. The weirdest part is that Barney � you know, that guy who always looks like he�s asleep � was totally fascinated by the cake. But when I offered it to him, he just laughed and turned away. �Ugly Cake� Questions (one word answers) a) Did the cake weigh more or less than two kilos? b) How many layers did the cake have? c) Guess: were the layers 2, 3, or 4 centimeters thick? d) Who was interested in the cake? Why was the ugly cake left on the person�s desk? If Barney is a spy, why would he want to seem bored? |