STAR TREK LIVE! - Ontario Science Centre

Teachers Resource Manual
Experiment: Computer User Recognition
2 Divide the class into three groups. Divide each
group into two teams. Tell the groups they will
circulate three learning centers.
3 Instructions for learning centers: Have group
members from each team take a learning
center card and read the “did you know” fact,
discuss the “discussion question,” perform
the “try it out” experiment, and then read
the “discuss findings” questions. Groups may
elect a member to take notes on the learning
center card. Advise that class will reconvene to
discuss their findings after all groups visit the
three learning centers.
4 Assign each group to a learning center to begin
the activities. Circulate to ensure that the
groups are on-task and to answer any
questions. Have the groups rotate after
approximately 10-15 minutes.
5 After the groups have explored each
learning center, reconvene the class to discuss
their findings (see explanation section for
more details). Tally the teams’ points and
congratulate the winning team.
Explanation
Locks and safes protect our money and objects.
Computers are machines that contain files. We
need to protect these files. We use codes to keep
our files safe. The codes can be something we type
or something the machine scans. The three codes
that we tried out are biometric scans.
Biometric comes from two Greek words. The word
bio means life and the word metric means
measure. These types of scans use your body as
the code. It uses any part of your body as long as
it doesn’t change. One of the most common scans
is for your fingerprints. Other types of scans are
eye color, voice patterns, and DNA. Star Trek uses
a password and voiceprint scan to identify a crew
member. NASA is a leader in using biometrics.
Computer User Recognition
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