Math Links for Week Ending June 14th, 2013

Hans Rosling does it so suscinctly. The way he shows data makes it so easy to see why understanding it is so important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbprYyjyyU
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U

I love this "heat" map. Which birth dates are the most popular. There is a wealth of data here. Not just in the fact that the actual data table is available but in the extra post about how people missinterpret this type of graph. And for that matter I like this blog. He tries to create a new visualization every day
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://thedailyviz.com/2012/05/12/how-common-is-your-birthday/






Apparently there is no reason to teach anything about polynomials and functions. Thanks Wolfram Alpha now I'm out of a job! I am kidding here but the tools now available on the knowledge engine are just fascinating and really should cause you to pause about how you might incorporate some of these tools into investigations in your classes.
Curriculum Tags: All Secondary
http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2013/05/28/solving-basic-properties-of-functions-and-equations-made-easy/




Need some summer PD. How about Classroom Adventures in Math at the University of Toronto
Curriculum Tags: All
https://math.escalator.utoronto.ca/home/classroom-adventures-in-mathematics-caim/

I love Dan Meyer's Latest post about the "Unengageables". Being someone who gives a lot of workshops I know people are thinking "this won't work for my students" and I think Dan really summed up the situation succinctly (from a student's perspective):
"They may even resist you. They signed their "didactic contract" years and years ago.They signed it. Their math teachers signed it. The agreement says that the teacher comes into class, tells them what they're going to learn, and shows them three examples of it. In return, the students take what their teacher showed them and reproduce it twenty times before leaving class. Then they go home with an assignment to reproduce it twenty more times.
Then here you come, Ms. I-Just-Got-Back-From-A-Workshop, and you want to change the agreement? Yeah, you'll hear from their attorney."
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17193

I really like this video from Numberphile. Its about what it means to truly be random and the difference between random and psuedo random numbers. It is kind of technical (and a bit long) but I think it really hits the idea of what randomness is. And I love that he actually actually generates random numbers by actually using a radioactive sample of
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxP30euw3-0

There has got to be a geometry question in here somewhere
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hbQ4DDX2Xg

Climate and XKCD. nuff said
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U
http://xkcd.com/1225/