Math Links for Week Ending Feb 15th, 2013

On this day after Valentine's day, what better way to celebrate than calculating how likely it would be to find love (and life on other planets). Could be used for percents or probability
Curriculum Tags: Grade 7, Grade 8, MDM4U, MCF3M
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/12/the-math-of-love/

I think that applications like this "Robot" kit is a great way to apply ideas in math classrooms. However I disagree with one of the things the guy says in the video. That "kids these days don't want to learn abstract math". I don't think most kids ever want to learn abstract math. However it is important to try to learn abstract content. Not for the sake of the content but for the sake of the brain exercise needed to master that content. Regardless, this is pretty cool.
http://mashable.com/2013/02/08/robots-drones-classroom/
Curriculum Tags: All

One of the things you can do if you have a YouTube account (and if you have a Gmail account, by default, you have one), is to create playlists of videos. Here a teacher has created two play lists. One to fit in to the Advanced Functions course and one for the grade 11 University course. And what she has done is linked the videos to the textbooks she is using by labeling the videos by textbook section. So the Advanced functions is linked to the McGraw Hill Textbook and the Grade 11 U videos are linked to the Nelson book.
MCR3U: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL267D675176AFDA06
MHF4U: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB593B541513EA001
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U

Here is a nice simple introduction to inverse functions. Worksheet included
http://drawingonmath.blogspot.ca/2013/02/inverse-functions.html
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U

Here is a nice little activity about creating quadrilaterals based on being given one side.
http://donsteward.blogspot.ca/2013/01/complete-quadrilateral.html
Curriculum Tags: Grade 7






Here are three versions of Dan Meyer's Stacking Cups task. Its a great task for linear relationships and could be used for grade 9&10 applied & academic depending on whether you just use the idea of stacking a single cup or find two different types of cups and ask when will they have the same height.
Dan Meyer: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=692
Andrew Stadel: http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/2013/01/styrofoam-cups.html
Fawn Nguyen: http://fawnnguyen.com/2013/02/05/20130204.aspx
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MPM2D, MFM2P

Although this teacher is talking about doing this for grade 8 curriculum, here in Ontario that fits the grade 10 academic curriculum. Teaching about perpendicular lines with geoboards but it could be done just as well with graph paper.
http://untilnextstop.blogspot.ca/2013/01/perpendicular-slopes-and-geoboards.html
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D

Even the cleaning person could be doing math
https://twitter.com/scottywrotem/status/199069633960087553/photo/1
Curriculum Tags: Grade 7, Grade 8, MFM1P, MPM1D

Yup we got yer bad math
http://apple.copydesk.org/2013/02/07/heres-one-for-the-pie-chart-hall-of-fame/
Curriculum Tags: Grade 7