Arecibo Message – classroom activities

Worksheets and solutions

This is the page where people can download activities, puzzles and solutions. Here is the page for accompanying teachers’ material.

Arecibo Pixel Puzzle – planets and telescope

Follow the colour key or choose your own colours (you’ll need 3 different ones) and colour in the picture. If you’re using the suggested colours, colour all the 0s as black, all the 3s as yellow and all the 6s as purple. [Puzzle] [Solution]

Arecibo Message – quiz

Compression Run Length Encoding

Using frequency / data pairs you’ll recreate a portion of the Arecibo Message in colour, then encode the same portion in binary. You can recreate the image on squared paper or use the Excel sheet.

[Activity sheet] [Solution] [Excel sheet]

You’ll create a comma separated variable file (of 1s and 0s) and import the data into Excel, then bring out the image by using Find and Replace to alter the 1s and 0s. [Instructions]

Reach for the stars

An aerial view of the Arecibo telescope

You’ll need to listen to some of the Sound files to complete this activity.

[Activity sheet] [Answers]

Make a picture come to life with Excel

You’ll create a comma separated variable file (of 1s and 0s) and import the data into Excel, then bring out the image by using Find and Replace to alter the 1s and 0s. [Instructions]

The Arecibo Message pages

Supported by Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for Public Engagement.

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