Bringing Cryptology into the Secondary Education Classroom

Abstract

Cryptology is becoming increasingly commonplace in undergraduate mathematics curricula as a way to motivate abstract mathematics. However, it is still typically absent in secondary education (students aged 11 to 18). In the following, we discuss why we think it would be advantageous to bring cryptology, both historical and modern, to the secondary education classroom. Additionally, we discuss some of the barriers we perceive to doing so and suggest, in our opinion, how they might be overcome. We illustrate implementation with a specific example of a topic in cryptology that could be included in a secondary education classroom.