Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 25th, 2013

Who said that math couldn't be emotional? Watch this father react after his son brings home a C mark.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls9Cg8iaq1s

I really like this post about giving a real reason to use ratios. Check it out: "Give them a recipe that involves two quantities, such as lemons and cups of sugar and ask them how to make more lemonade that tastes the same and less lemonade that tastes the same. Have them record different values in a labeled table.". See more examples of this train of thought. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1D
http://nicoraplaca.com/one-way-introduce-ratios-make-sense-students/

Try out the Desmos Des-Man project. Have your kids flex their Domain and Range muscle by drawing pictures of faces with functions
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M
http://blog.desmos.com/post/62158789621/des-man-a-desmos-labs-project

The candle is burning at one end at Tap into Teen Minds with another three act math task. Extrapolation, interpolation in scatterplots here. Complete with videos and data.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://tapintoteenminds.com/2013/10/14/candles-burning-3-act-math-task/

Interesting article about research that suggests why there are fewer women in mathematics than there should be. This XKCD comic kinda sums it up. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one.

Curriculum Tags: All
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/21/the-need-for-belonging-in-math-and-science/

Can you use early math skills to predict skills later in life? There is research to suggest this is true about learning things like fractions but is it true for numeracy skills in babies?
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/babies-born-with-math-skills/

Last week I posted a video from the TV show Person of Interest and @ChrisHunter36 helped me find a better version and then I found that he had posted more here
Curriculum Tags: All
http://reflectionsinthewhy.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/teacher-of-interest-episode-1/
http://vimeo.com/58436004

Oh, legos
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://xkcd.com/1281/

Thanks to Edudemic for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U
http://www.edudemic.com/best-math-chart/ 

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 18th, 2013

Here is a really fun look at distributions via animals and an animation
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://vimeo.com/75089338

Although the actual activity in this post at first seems like it is more for middle school. It quickly moves into polynomials and could easily be adapted up to grade 11 with rational functions. So you might have (x) (6/x) = 6 (or something more complex)
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D, MCR3U, MCF3M
http://squarerootofnegativeoneteachmath.blogspot.ca/2013/09/this-lesson-cost-me-1.html






As someone who is a fan of Rock, Paper, Scissors as an activity for teaching math, I love that there is an applet for playing against a robot. Especially since you can bring in the research and the Rock Paper Scissors World championship (or regional). And while you are in the vicinity, don't forget Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock and its now famed Big Bang Theory reference. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://mathcoachblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/rock-paper-scissors-and-2-way-tables/

Any time you can do an activity that involves toys and scatter plots, I say go for it. This time its with friction driven cars.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://fawnnguyen.com/2013/10/10/vroom-vroom.aspx


The age old question, "do professional teams that spend the most on their payrolls win more?" From Yummy Math here are stats from the big four professional sports to help answer the question. Let your scatter plots go wild. And if that is not enough for you then take a look at this dynamic view of professional baseball with this cool series of visualizations from Ben Fry.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2013/do-teams-that-spend-a-lot-win-a-lot/

Why does the number 1729 show up so often in the show Futurama? I will give you a hint, it has something to do with taxicabs and the fact that there were a large proportion of math majors writing for the show. A perfect starter if you are talking about powers of numbers, specifically cubes.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://io9.com/why-does-the-number-1729-show-up-in-so-many-futurama-ep-1445512975

This could be a good starter for a talk about budgets in an locally developed or workplace math class. Thanks to Corrie Silva for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MAT1L, MAT2L, MEL3E, MEL4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQJxGIFzdo

I have seen a better version of this clip but for the life of me couldn't find it. Still a neat answer to the question "What is any of this good for? When would we ever use it?" from Person of Interest. The idea is that everything we ever know is hidden in the digits of Pi. Thanks to Kimberly Gibson for this one. Thanks also to @ChrisHunter36 for the better version of this
Curriculum Tags: All
http://vimeo.com/58436405

Here is a neat Flikr group Geometric Images in Real Life. Over 700 images of things that relate to geometry. This could be really helpful when trying to make those connections between geometry and real life.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://www.flickr.com/groups/geometryinreallife/

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 11th, 2013

"Mathematics is really about discovering patterns...." I love this video about the limitations of computers in math. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piyGXW_gMbc
Curriculum Tags: All

I really like this video with Simon Singh where he talks about the near proofs of Fermat's Last Theorem that occur not once but twice in The Simpsons. I have always liked Fermat's Last Theorem because it is something that kids of many ages can try out. The other thing I like about this is it shows the limitation of the calculator when doing proofs. Plus its a great preview of his new book "The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets".
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOQ300AcSU

Need an example of where sample size comes into play. How about this poll about whether Montreal should have another MLB team. Thanks to Mike Lieff for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/sports/mlb/blog.html?b=sports.nationalpost.com/2013/09/24/more-than-two-thirds-of-quebecers-want-major-league-baseball-back-in-montreal-according-to-poll


I have had sampling on the mind. Here is a nice simple sample size and confidence interval calculator
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm#two

Just one more about sampling. This time the classic story of sampling bias in the 1936 election where it shows that just because you have a large sample size (2.4 million!!), doesn't mean you have a good sample.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.html

This is an interesting post about research based ideas on how to help students with simplifying equations. Some of them seem counter intuitive to me but I am intrigued. For example, don't use the first letter of the object as the variable name. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.

http://nicoraplaca.com/5-ways-make-simplifying-expressions-make-sense/

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P, MPM2D

I like this 3 act task because it nicely combines both the measurement strand and the proportional reasoning strand (number sense) so it could be used as part of a summative assessment too.

Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D
http://tapintoteenminds.com/2013/09/28/mustard-mayhem/

I love this calculator "unboxing" video from Numberphile. If you have never seen an unboxing video then just search for them on YouTube and you will find so many of people opening up their favourite things for the first time. It's a weird meme, I know. I love the commentary on the calculators here "its got 0 and 00 so if you want to have a number really close to zero then you are all set". All fun aside, I do like the tests he goes through to detect the accuracy of each calculator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaJtjJNrWf0#t=547
Curriculum Tags: All

Using interpretive dance to describe concepts in statistics. Here are four videos that do just that. Seriously.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fGu8hvdZ6s&list=PLCkLQOAPOtT2H1hJRUxUYOxThRwfVI9jI

Area Paradox done in chocolate. Perfect if you want to talk about slope. Personally I think that is the best way to show why it happens but that is just me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13tSEyOqGs
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM2P

Its funny because it's true

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

http://xkcd.com/1273/

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 4, 2013

If you love billionaires sailing around in multi million dollar carbon fibre rockets then the latest America's Cup challenge is for you. These AC 72 yachts are a technological marvel. Truly amazing how they literally fly above the water. But even better is that there is full coverage online with lots of extra features. In this segment they give a nice real world application of adding vectors when dealing with the apparent wind ( the direction the wind feels like it's coming from which is the vector sum of the actual wind and the wind generated from movement )

Curriculim Tags: MCV4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvSRuer2V_k

Is post secondary education worth it? We have seen some of this data in previous weeks. In this version we have the connection with tuition and earnings. It interesting how the connection between these things is different depending on the type of institution. Now this is based on US schools where, in my opinion, there is a very wide swoth of quality ( whereas here in Canada I think the quality is pretty high regardless of where you go )

Curriculum Tags : MDM4U

http://priceonomics.com/is-college-worth-it/

Even though this blog post is about the social value of giving the same activity over several years, one of the comments ( from Mr. Stahl) actually inclded a link to the actual matching cards that you can download and print out here Even though this is a matching activity dealing with radians it could be adapted to grade 11 trig.

Curriculum Tags: MHF4U, MCR3U, MCF3M

http://mathteachermambo.blogspot.com/2013/09/precalculus-matching-game.html

Another one from the blog Math Teacher Mambo for trig. This time on reference triangles. I like two things about this 1) the investigative nature of the activity and 2) using whiteboard markers right on the surface of desks. No you can't lift up your desks to show the class like with portable white boards but the trade off is you have a huge surface for solutions. 

Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M

http://mathteachermambo.blogspot.com/2013/09/reference-triangles.html

Although there is some discussion here about the value of teaching domain and range (in the comments), here in Ontario it is a specific part of the grade 11 curriculum. So this yes/no card activity would work well.

Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M

http://christopherdanielson.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/college-algebra-teachers-please-try-this-and-report-back/

I am a sucker for a good infographic ( I'm kinda dumb that way). Here's one that Yummy Math is using that asks the question "is there a home field advantage in the NFL?" As it is with all activities on this site, the PDF is available to download but you need to be a member to get the answers and a editable version.

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

http://www.yummymath.com/2013/home-team-advantage-nfl/

For those of you who like Vi Hart, you can see tha the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree. Here is a video from her dad about his exhibit of geometrical art. On a side note, if you google his name he comes up as a professional geometer. Who knew that was a thing?
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI1612YhMqg

The art of data visualization (nuff said)
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

http://youtu.be/AdSZJzb-aX8

I thought this graph would be a great discussion starter for two reasons. 1) because the discussion of which person is better could actually be fairly deep and 2) you can use it to re enforce the idea of how to place points on a scatter plot ( maybe you could ask where a good person would be place d on the graph? 

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

http://thisisindexed.com/2013/09/is-non-participation-ethical/