Technology students in Ms. Herring’s class at James Blair Middle learned the history of Samuel Morse’s telegraph and Morse code to kick off their communication unit. After learning Morse code’s system of dots and dashes to represent numbers and letters, 7th and 8th grade students created their own binary code with colors symbolizing letters of the alphabet. Using their code as a key to program robots, students transmitted messages to partners across the room. Students also learned ways secret messages have been transmitted throughout history, ending with a discussion about how block chain technology works in the 21st century. An article about secret agents provided context as students rotated through cipher stations to learn more about Navajo Code Talkers and coding systems such as Caesar, null, and Pigpen ciphers.