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Description

A fairly straightforward game designed to help Beavers understand how passwords can be made stronger, for the Digital Citizen Badge.

Resources

Pen and paper optional

Instructions

1. Explain to Beavers what a password is: it is a special word that you can remember, but which others won't be able to guess. We use passwords to keep information on the internet safe from other people, but accessible to us.
2. In their lodges or as a whole group, ask Beavers to think of a colour, but not to say it aloud. If they have pen and paper, they can write it down, but don't share it with other people.
3. Now ask the Beavers to turn to the person next to them and to take it in turns to guess what colour their partner is thinking of. Give them about 30 seconds—they should see that it doesn't take them very long to work out the other person's secret word! (The pieces of paper can be used to check that the other person isn't lying!)
4. Now ask the Beavers to think of a new colour AND a farm animal, again keeping it to themselves.
5. They should then again turn to the person next to them (or a different person to mix it up), and take it in turns to guess what colour and farm animal their partner is thinking of. Only if they guess the correct combination of colour and the farm animal do they get it right! Ask the Beavers whether it was easier to guess the first password (the one which was simply a colour), or the second password (the one which was a colour and a farm animal).
6. Now ask the Beavers to secretly think of a new colour, farm animal AND a number between 1 and 10.
7. The Beavers should then try guessing their partner's combination of colour, farm and animal—only if they get all three do they get it right. Ask the Beavers whether it was easier or harder to guess this password, or the previous passwords.
8. Explain to the Beavers that the more different elements, words and numbers you have in a password, the harder it is for other people to guess and the more secure it is!
You could keep this game going by adding in new elements to the password — like months, numbers between 1 and 20, days of the week etc.

Tags

• Digital Citizen
• password

Badge Links

• Digital Citizen - Password