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Parity magic

Beginner robot Difficulty 1/5 Screen-free lesson Stop 7 / 13 ages 8-10

A hands-on, screen-free CS Unplugged lesson for ages 8-10 (about 30 minutes), part of the 'Error detection and correction' unit.

For a grown-up to do with a child.

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Your guide

AI-written overview

What is it?

Parity magic is part of a CS Unplugged unit about how computers notice and fix mistakes in the information they store and send. The activities use card tricks and number games.

Is it for me?

It is for children about 8-10 and up who like puzzles and magic tricks, with a grown-up or teacher to help. It is a Beginner activity and needs no computer.

Grown-ups: practise the trick before you show it. Some activities in this unit use arithmetic, so a calculator is fine.

How to start

  1. Get a set of two-sided cards or make some from paper.
  2. Try the card trick or number game with a grown-up.
  3. Swap roles, and try to explain why it works.

How much time?

Most lessons take about 30 minutes. Plan about 25 minutes for a session. (estimate)

25 min per session 3 sessions estimate

A plan you can follow

  1. Day 1 30 min Learn the card trick.
  2. Day 2 30 min Show the trick to a friend or family member.
  3. Week 1 30 min Try the next activity in the unit.
  4. Week 2 30 min Look for where mistakes get fixed in real life.

Times are estimates. Go at your own speed.

Start the lesson

Open our lesson page for Parity magic. It is a short, simple version of an open lesson you can do together.

Go to the lesson

Adapted from CS Unplugged by the University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research Group, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made: simplified, shortened and translated by Open Cosmos with AI.

On this site. From the list: uccser/cs-unplugged · License: CC-BY-SA-4.0 · CS Unplugged: Error detection and correction

Lesson from CS Unplugged, University of Canterbury CSER Group, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes were made: translated and level-tagged by Open Cosmos, with AI. Shared under the same license.

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