Math Links for Week Ending Dec 26th, 2014

This is a relatively new site dealing with diagnostic questioning with multiple choice questions. Now most MC question sites are pretty standard. Ask a question, show some answers, tell the person if they got it right, move on. This is different. First of all, the questions are written with good MC design. That is, the wrong answers are based on misconceptions. So this means that even if someone chooses the wrong answer they can learn something. Also as they answer, they are encouraged to explain their reasoning for making that choice. Once they answer then they can see the correct answer and all the explanations (of the correct and incorrect answers) created by other students. So that means they can self medicate. Teachers can create classes and questions and there are more than just math questions (though math currently has the most). Thanks to Dan Meyer for pointing this one out. Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.diagnosticquestions.com/

A new activity from my Engaging Math. This one is about the geometric (area) model of the Pythagorean Theorem. Students are given sets of three numbers (some are Pythagorean Triples) and then sets of squares with side lengths equal to the numbers in the sets. Through the activity, students then discover the Pythagorean relationship.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2014/12/the-area-representation-of-pythagorean.html

Kyle at Tap Into Teen Minds, has a new three acts that deals with cylinders and jelly beans. I actually saw it independent of the jelly bean video below. But if you are doing anything with cylinders then this could be good. There are two here actually, the original and the sequel. So check them both out.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://tapintoteenminds.com/3act-math/guessing-gumballs/
http://tapintoteenminds.com/3act-math/guessing-gumballs-sequel/

This site has been around for a while but they have added some new activities since the last time I have been to it. My favourite activity is the Music in Math Challenge where students work with music samples in rate and ratio in a fun and interactive way. There are other challenges dealing with percents, graphing, parabolas and more.

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MPM2D, MFM2P
http://www.thirteen.org/get-the-math/

Do you need to know when all the major math holiday's are? Then look no further. From the most popular "Pi Day" to the lesser known "Fibonacci Day", get the info here. Thanks to Michael Lieff for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://tetrahedral.blogspot.ie/2012/12/14-math-holidays-every-math-major.html

I always like having examples of quadratic relations in real life. This animation was made in 2008 to demonstrate the power of a new video card and it has balls flying in parabolic motion all over the place. And if you look closely you can also pick up some spots with sinusoidal motion (eg when the cymbal is crashed).
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P, MCF3M, MCR3U, MBF3C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyCIpKAIFyo

A math parody of Gagnam Style. This time dealing with intro to Trig. Thanks to Michael Elliot and Alessadra Perruccio for this.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P, MCF3M, MBF3C, MCR3U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwswKGw0DuM

This was a contest that ran last year out of Australia. The premiss was being able to guess how many jelly beans were in the cylinder. You could pay $5 to make a guess and the person who guessed close enough could win $100,000. As it turns out, the contest was cancelled and everyone got their money back and we never did find out what the amount was. But you could try it in your classes, just for fun.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://vimeo.com/26603533

My sone made this dodecahedron for my wife for Christmas out of cans of Coke.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/davidpetro314/status/548312000259194880/photo/1

I like this little problem that deals with both perimeter, geometry and number sense.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://twitter.com/stephenbodman/status/547049100076924928/photo/1

I thought this would be a good for exploring exponential functions and modelling. When you try to model the size of storage space over time then you should see an exponential relationship (probably closely following Moore's Law). You could probably also do some research and look at how the price per Mb has also changed.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MAP4C, MCT4C, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/SciencePorn/status/548341441047851008/photo/1