Enigma Five - Funny Papers

 Last week we went high tech.  This week....retro.  Spy stuff involving dead tree newspapers.

Here again is our old pal Alexandria Ottendorf.  She spends her day doing things that look non sneaky.  She reads the paper, she plays cards.  Hmmmm, but she must be up to something.

Go.

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Unsurprisingly the kids love invisible ink.  They are always looking for it in most unlikely places.  So to indulge them we had an invisible ink workshop.  We tested "invisible ink pens" which use an unspecified phosphorescent material, classic lemon juice, and in a nod to our location in America's Dairyland, milk.  Various surface textures and colors also were part of the testing.  They rated each test case for stealth (can you see evidence of writing) and for clarity of each substance.  Some of course need a bit of heat to show up.

This part of the session went well.  No smoke alarms activated and some thoughtful discussion.  In fact this led to a side discussion.  Or, since teaching them interesting things is the main point, a core discussion.  Chemistry.  Organic versus inorganic.  What is a phosphor?  Where does the name phosphorus come from?  Would you expect lime juice to work as well as lemon?  How about whole or skim milk as compared to the 2% used in testing?

Then it was on to the main project.

You'd think that crosswords have little to do with espionage but wrong would you be.  In 1944 a British crossword puzzle editor found himself under arrest.  He had published a puzzle with various code words associated with the upcoming D-Day invasion.  Overlord, Mulberry, etc.  It was those darned kids....

It seems he was also a headmaster, and in time honored tradition asked his students to help with his work.  They concocted the clues with the dangerous answers.....from various loose lipped gossip they picked up hanging around US and UK bivouacs where troops were training for the big day! 

Bit of an object lesson there for me, as our Staff Challenge is looking very promising and I'll be having these darned kids help me concoct it!

The crossword part of the session was not as successful.  They don't know much yet and while they could work through things sans Chromebooks it took far too long to get the final word combination, which when the box was opened, was a flat out announcement that there was a special surprise inside this week.

Overall an off session.  Some kids were on, others were not.  Odd how a kid can be laser focused one week and goofing around the next.  Oh well, if I'm not pushing them a bit past their limits I'm not doing my job.  

Next two sessions will be prep for Staff Challenge.  I understand we have among others the building principle on board and the District Superintendent as a maybe.......