Math Links for Week Ending Jan. 24th, 2014

Why do (some) people hate math? That is what Numberphile asked and the answer is pretty good. Honestly I felt they could stop at the painting the fence analogy.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yexc19j3TjE

So last week I posted another video from Numberphile that has generated a lot of mathematical discussion. Of the rebuttals, I think this was the fairest. If you haven't seen the video yet, click here.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/18/follow_up_the_infinite_series_and_the_mind_blowing_result.html

Among the things that got a make over with the relaunch of the Math Gains site last week was the CLIPS flash object. Some new tabs that include some of the new games that have appeared on the Mathies.ca site as well as one for tools (though that one seems redundant since the wrench icon will also take you there).
Tags: All
http://oame.on.ca/clips/

I really love this pattern recently found on the Math With Bad Drawings blog. The thing that is great is that you could use this pattern as is in grade 7 or 8 but then you could use it as an intro to multiplying binomials and on the blog I love the visual proof as well.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM2P
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2014/01/13/undiscovered-math/


I really like this very comprehensive post from Dan Meyer on what piques curiosity in students. Lots of examples from various grade levels and reference to research along the way.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=18314







It's no secret that I am a fan of Desmos, This week, in preparation of the Superbowl, Yummy math has a data set about Superbowl ads that is dynamic and spans linear, quadratic and exponential models. Perfect for MCR3U and MHF4U.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2014/how-has-the-cost-of-a-super-bowl-ad-changed-3/

I love this geometry construction game. You start with two points, and you can construct either a line segment or a circle based on those points. Any intersections create new points and you are given figures to create (Eg a triangle inscribed in a circle). Its actually a little addictive. Give it to your students who need something extra to do.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://sciencevsmagic.net/geo/

What do you call a group of mathematicians? Thanks to the fine folks at the American Mathematical Society you can follow this link and find out.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2014/01/14/collective-noun-for-mathematicians/

Do you need a "real world" video to help you teach systems of equations. Of course you do. Here is an activity from Emergent Math that uses this cool video from an MLB promotion. He cuts the video at first so you don't see the end and can have those good conversations with kids. And if you want to lead to something more dynamic then pull up this Gizmo to play with the situation. Also don't forget to take a look at the alternat 3Act version at the When Math Happens blog. Well done.

Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P, MPM2D

http://emergentmath.com/2014/01/22/guy-racing-another-guy-in-a-squirrel-costume-obviously-a-systems-problem/

Somebody from Make Magazine was at the Joint Mathematics Meeting and took a bunch of pictures and video from the floor. Some neat images
Curriculum Tags: All
http://makezine.com/2014/01/21/making-with-math/

Math Links for Week Ending Jan. 3rd, 2014

Any time you can connect video games to math, I like that. And if you can do it using Tracker, even better. Here its using video analysis to estimate how fast the cars are going in Angry Birds Go! There is enough in here so that you could include math from both grade 9 and 10 math depending on how deep you want to go.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P, MPM2D
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/how-fast-are-the-cars-in-angry-birds-go/

If you teach exponential growth you should watch this video. It doesn't use and fancy technology or have any bells and whistles but it does a great job of really putting the idea of exponentials in perspective. And if you like this video I suggest you watch the rest of the videos in the series. There are a lot of great ideas that you can use for sure. I really like the way he really drives home the idea of doubling.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U, MAP4C
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html

It always seems like there aren't many Calculus resources. Well here is a nice paper and pencil resource for converting between f and f' from Math Teacher Mambo.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
http://mathteachermambo.blogspot.com/2014/01/calculus-f-and-f-graphs.html

Here is an interesting question. What height would we be if we continued to grow at the same rate we do in our first month of life? This is the latest question from the blog What if? (the creator of XKCD) Where crazy questions are treated with physics and mathematical treatment. This one would be good for linear relations or ratios.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D
http://what-if.xkcd.com/77/

Planet Nutshell has a new series of videos called Math Shorts and they have created a handful of the 20 or so eventual videos. See them all here. Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.planetnutshell.com/skill/math-shorts/

Here is an interesting image that relates to algebraic fallacies. It could be used for some of those higher end students when dealing with the fine points of algebraic manipulations.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MPM2D
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bc-0INnIcAAdykP.jpg

For those who are into Malcom Gladwell's new book David & Goliath
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7958374656/h5E5820CE/

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 9th, 2013

If you have ever taught distance time graphs you know that a common misconception that students have is that the graph represents going up or down a hill. David Wees has made a nice little app that could help to fight that problem. Too bad it doesn't work on the iPad. But its awesome that the stick figure guy is from XKCD. Thanks to @emergentmath for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
http://davidwees.com/graphgame/

It may be a pay per use but its so cheap its undervalued. Mathalicous has some great lessons. Some are free to try but the majority are only available once you subscribe. So here is one of their sample lessons on health care that deals with expected value.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.mathalicious.com/lesson/licensed-to-ill/



I seemed to stumble on my sister site. The Ontario Math Wiki is a collaborative site where teachers can join and contribute to. Check the site out for literal tonnes of resources linked directly to the grade 7-12 Ontario math curriculum. And add your own links.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://ontariomath.wikispaces.com/

PBS Math Club is a new YouTube channel where the videos link directly to math curriculum. Some are a bit cheesey and there aren't many videos right now but there is great potential here. Right now there are just a few videos on integers. Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/10/pbs-math-club-short-interactive-math.html

Want to try problem based learning (PBL) but don't know where to start? Well @emergentmath has your answer. They have compiled a list of activities to start with. And even though one of these is a classic calculus problem, I think that all of the problems deal with grade 7 & 8 number sense (and maybe some data management).
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://emergentmath.com/2013/10/30/a-problem-based-learning-starter-kit/

I totally love this video. Well, the video isn't that exciting but the concept is pretty cool. Its a 12 gear mechanism where the gears are set up so that when one gear rotates, the next gear will rotate 1/50th as fast. The last gear is connected to a cement block and due to the exponential nature of the system, will make one complete rotation in 2.3 trillion years! This is perfect for any course dealing with powers, or exponential functions.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MCR3U, MCF3M, MAP4C, MCT4C
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/this-mind-bending-machine-completes-one-turn-every-2-3-1457516789

Want a way to introduce equations? Why not solve the equation "A picture is worth a 1000 words" for one word.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BGTpc90CcAE5FaB.jpg

Yay, combinatorics

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7888615168/h9CCFC63A/

Math Links for Week Ending Apr 26th, 2013

Get the Math has been around for a couple of years but when it first came out it only had a few activities. Not sure how I cam across it again but I see that it has expanded its content. The premiss is that it would highlight a real context that math was used and then build an interactive activity around it. So far they have fashion, music, video games, basketball, restaurants and special effects. With topics like ratio and rate, percents, plotting points, linear relations, quadratics and exponential relationships. Personally my favourite is the music activity with ratios and sampled beats. Very cool. Below is the intro video for that activity
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P, MPM2D, MCR3U, MCF3M, MBF3C, MAP4C, MCT4C
http://www.thirteen.org/get-the-math/

Watch Get The Math - Math in Music Intro on PBS. See more from THIRTEEN Kids.

I have mixed feelings about the whole effort to make tutorial videos about doing math. Not so much about whether they are a good idea but more about the quality of what is out there. There are certainly large repositories (the Khan Academy) but its navigating those videos can be a problem. Phoenix College has tried to address that with this simple interface. Start with a topic and then that is further broken down into sub topics until you find the video you want. Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for turning me on to this one.
http://www.phoenixcollege.edu/academics/programs/mathematics/math-videos
Curriculum Tags: All

Download this free poster of colour coded trig identities from the Math Four site. A nice visual aid that you could print out for your grade 11 students.
http://mathfour.com/trigonometry/how-to-memorize-trig-identities-free-download
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U







I like this simple experiment. Next time it snows (hopefully not soon), fill up a glas with it and estimate the amount of water when it melts. You could create all sorts of data when doing this and then use that to connect snow fall with regular precipitation.
http://emergentmath.com/2013/04/16/snow-cylinder/
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D

Apparently the portion of the brain that is in charge of doing math is
localized to one area. At least that is what it seems a new research paper is saying. Read more here. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one.
http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/23/your-brain-on-math/
Curriculum Tags: All

Math Links for Week Ending Apr 19th, 2013

I have been an XKCD fan for years and just found out that the creator has a new blog called What If? (Thanks to Michele Cooper for pointing this out) The premiss of the new blog is to
try to answer weird questions about physics. Some fantasy (How much force could Yoda output?) some based in some sort of reality (What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball travelling at 90% the speed of light?). But some are math based. He apparently puts a new one out every Tuesday. Here are the ones that I think are math based:
SAT Guessing -What if everyone guessed on the SATs. How many perfect scores would there be?
Droppings - If you went outside and lay down on your back with your mouth open, how long would you have to wait until a bird pooped in it?
Pennies - If you carried around a penny in your coin tray, how long would it take for that penny to cost you more than a cent in extra gas?
Twitter - How many unique English tweets are possible?
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U

Sometimes technology can be a problem. Especially when it lets you do calculations that are difficult to check. Here is a story about a widely used economics study that eventually was found to have a flaw in the Excel spreadsheet calculations. Could be a good conversation starter about calculating average. It comes from the NPR radio show Marketplace.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/excel-mistake-heard-round-world
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U

Here are a couple of pythagorean proofs that you could use to challenge some of your better kids
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml#99
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D



I kind of like this blog post about functions. Its a relatively simple intro to functions but I like the differer real life examples of functions machines.
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.ca/2013/03/is-this-function.html
Curriculum Tags: MCF3M, MCR3U





For baseball fans, we know there are a pile of stats that can be used in class out there. Here are some
from Albert Pujols that could be used for linear relations and extrapolation in grade 9
http://www.yummymath.com/2013/albert-pujols-on-pace-2013/
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P




I like the idea of this activity for dealing with surface area of irregular shapes. A prank where you cover an entire room with tin foil. How much would you need?
http://www.yummymath.com/2013/foil-prank/
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P




Web2.0calc is an online scientific calculator that you can embed in your own websites and blogs. Download the widgets here (there are three versions)
Web 2.0 scientific calculator
Curriculum Tags: All

Here is a good activity where students are given choice in dealing with exponentials (in context).
Although it is not always flawless, giving students choices of contexts is a way to help foster some sort of engagement.
http://drawingonmath.blogspot.ca/2013/04/exponentials-in-context.html
Curriculum Tags: MCF3M, MCR3U, MAP4C, MCT4C

Any time there is some talk of using good embedded formative assessment in math class is a good time as well as I am concerned. With references to Dylan Wiliam, this is a good place to start.
http://thescamdog.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/two-by-four/
Curriculum Tags: All

In an Ignite talk, the speaker gives a 5 minute talk with a 20 page slideshow. They are meant to be really inspiring. Here is a link to a playlist with 64 of these talks.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5CDF98F961F9527D
And below is one of my favourites about Wondering and Noticing
Curriculum Tags: All

The first time I saw this animation was in the documentary Supersize Me. Its a great movie for any data management class to see. There are a lot of great displays of data in unique ways and it tells a good story.
Obesity Graph
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U