Math Links for Week Ending June 20th, 2014

"Part of the joy of the Booster Maxxx is knowing that every few weeks, a bunch of underpaid Eastern-European carnies take it apart and put it back together again in another city, significantly increasing the chances of a catastrophic accident."

And so starts a series of calculations to figure out where you would land if this amusement park ride failed and launched you instead. Although a bit morbid, this series of calculations would be well suited for any class talking about parabolic/projectile motion. I like the use of Google Maps and streetview to enhance the solution.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P, MCR3U, MCF3M, MBF3C
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-far-are-you-flung-when-an-amusement-park-ride-goes-terribly-wrong

I really like this post about using an area model for dealing with quadratic equations. I have been an advocate for that for years but I had never seen this kind of treatment. Using the snap cubes to represent each term for various values of x is neat. And I love the different visual representations of each stage. Check it out.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P
http://slamdunkmath.blogspot.ca/2014/06/area-length-width.html


This dynamic sketch from the folks at Sketchpad is an interesting way to attack the problem of dynamic software. That is, if you have a dynamic sketch that shows the sum of the angles in a triangle always equal 180o then what might happen is that the dynamic nature may be too quick for students to grasp the very thing you want them to. So they have modified the sketch with virtual protractors so that kids actually have to make the measurements of the angles.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D
http://blog.keycurriculum.com/questioning-some-dynamic-geometry-angle-wisdom/

Here is another connections to math in the movies. This one is dealing with the idea of error calculations and the movie Divergent.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.statslife.org.uk/significance/1345-the-search-for-divergents-and-measurement-error









I wasn't sure about this one at first but then I realized that we do have to try to reach every student and for those who are artistically inclined, this can be a way to get them engaged in the math you are doing. thanks to Peter Wright for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.teacher-support-force.com/teaching-math-with-art.html

This article focuses on a book called How not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking. I like the reference to the Stock Broker's fallacy problem too. Thanks to Michele Cooper for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/if-you-ever-wondered-how-math-class-could-help-you-later-in-life-heres-your-answer/article19221765/

Although, technically, I think the methods this kid uses are outside of our grade 12 calculus course, it is still interesting. From a scientific perspective, I liked how meticulous he was in taking his measurements.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://student.societyforscience.org/blog/eureka-lab/teen-puts-calculus-ice

I have seen a few different versions of this shirt but I think this one is the one that is most mathematically correct. Thanks to Michele Cooper for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
http://www.redbubble.com/people/malcolmwest/works/12091162-holy-shift-look-at-the-asymptote-on-that-mother-function?p=t-shirt

At 538 they literally post tonnes of stuff every day. So you are bound to find something you will like relating to data. This week it is data about PBS Artist Bob Ross. You may know him as the guy who teaches you how to paint landscapes. Well they have the data on all the elements that he has included in his paintings and here they are
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-statistical-analysis-of-the-work-of-bob-ross/

Math Links for Week Ending June 13th, 2014

Speed dating and Row games are two really nice activities to promote kids doing questions and then self checking whether they are correct or not. I first learned about these from @k8nowak on her Function of Time blog a few years ago. I was recently reminded of them when @thescamdog tweeted that they have a little video introduction to these on their provincial math site in Alberta. Speed dating has students become experts in the solution for one question each. They are then paired sitting across from each other and switch question. Once that question is solved then they shift one position and switch with another student. Row games has students paired with a worksheet where there are two columns of questions and each student does the question in one column. The beauty of the worksheet is that the answer for each question in any particular row is the same so that if the students get different answers they know that one or both of them has made a mistake. Thus it's self checking.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.aac.ab.ca/projects-grants/high-school-mathematics/#FormativeAssessmentRowGamesandSpeedDatingvideo-6

How about some data on the lyrics that boy bands of the 90's used the most. Yep, there's data on that. Hey, data is data. This could easily be used for central tendancy, bar graphs, or even box plots.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/90s-boy-band-lyrics-theyre-all-about-you/

I like collecting real data in classes, and so I was thrilled with a reason to do so. That is, the mystery of why there are different weights of regular M&Ms vs Peanut Butter M&Ms per bag. The actual reason is a bit of a mystery and you can listen about that mystery with the Planet Money podcast here . But collecting data about how many M&Ms are in each pack (or how much each pack weighs in reality) is a good way to talk about measures of central tendency, dot plots, and standard deviation.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/06/05/319084976/why-a-pack-of-peanut-butter-m-ms-weighs-a-tiny-bit-less-than-a-regular-pack

Though this is a couple of years old, I just came across it today. Math Goes to the Movies is a book that connects scenes in movies to teaching specific math concepts. Having done presentations on this sort of thing at OAME, I am interested to see what they have found that I haven't
Curriculum Tags:All
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/math-goes-movies

Math anxiety is real. We have all seen kids who suffer from it. Here are some ways to combat this problem.

Curriculum Tags: All

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-fight-your-kids-math-anxiety/372572/

Mixing dance and math to entice girls in an after school program.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2014/04/18/after-school-program-uses-dance-nurture-girls-interest-math/JmszMn1zOR7DPcRiozShpN/story.html

One of Keith Devlin's more recent books was Leonardo & Steve about, you guessed it, Fibonacci and Jobs. It comes in ebook only form but if you want to get the gyst of what's in the book you might look at this two part talk on the same subject.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://vimeo.com/93390473
http://vimeo.com/93532834

I like this math "takedown" of this motivational poster. It leads to a nice problem about comparing the volume of cylinders, spheres and cubes. Could be used in grade 9 math measurement or in grade 8 if you leave out the sphere.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, Gr8
https://twitter.com/dandersod/status/477024981042626560

Might as well have a graph about the World Cup. This is coming from the 538 blog where they predict the winner of the soccer tournament. And as they point out, you don't need a computer model to predict that Brazil is the heavy favourite (even after their controversial win over Croatia). Either way they go through the reasoning behind their prediciton
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-brazils-world-cup-to-lose/

538 keeps hitting with the data that has so much bearing on world events. Which is the blingiest NBA playoff matchup? That is which pair of teams has the most rings.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/its-the-second-blingiest-finals-matchup-in-modern-nba-history/

Math Links for Week Ending June 6th, 2014

Here is a nice panel talk (if you have 90 min to kill) on modelling in math with Steven Strogatz (among others). Its a video but there actually isn't much to see. So you could probably just set it playing while you do other work.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/05/go-figure-predicting-the-world-with-math/

Someone has posted all the videos from Joe Boaler's How to Learn Math course. This is an online course that is meant for parents and teachers (apparently there is a separate course for students). Here is the whole playlist.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPMnjU12_V1Io4AV8OeaK958Kr6EC_ovq

It being NHL playoff time Yummy Math has a data set about the longest overtime games. In the regular season, games can end in a tie but in the payoffs the game must be won or lost so the overtimes just keep coming. Its a small data set of the games with the largest number of over time minutes. A nice little data set that you could use for percentages,single variable dot plots, box & whisker plots, average or standard deviation.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2014/longest-nhl-overtime-games-in-history/

And another one from Yummy Math. This time on movie opening weekends. This data set gives the opening weekend gross for blockbuster movies and couples that with the overall gross. It leaves out the overall gross for the new Godzilla movie (since it doesn't exist). This means this data set would be good for interpolation/extrapolation with scatter plots. They get the data from a great website that I have been using for years, Box Office Mojo. So many different metrics about movies that you can use for any class dealing with data.
Curriculum Tags: MAP4C, MDM4U
http://www.yummymath.com/2014/opening-weekend-3/

A three act math task from Kyle over at the Tap Into Teen Minds site. This time with composite area. Because it's dealing with circles that means it's for grade 9 classes only. I hope you like cookies. Check out the first act below and go to the website for the rest.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D
http://tapintoteenminds.com/3act-math/cookie-cutter/

I am a big fan of performance tasks for summative assessments. So it's no surprise that I like this one from Alex at Slam Dunk Math. There are a lot of things I like about this one. First it's done board wide so across many schools. Secondly it takes several days and the students co construct the information needed for the task. And thirdly there are a lot of ways for students to participate and be involved. I like how Alex has given detailed instructions and info about how things went. I am going to suggest that Alex post the image files associated with each sheet so that if there are any of us who want to use them it will save us time. Thanks to @MaryBourassa for this one. She did it in her class and has a detailed series of posts about how each day went (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4).
Curriculum Tags: MPM2P
http://slamdunkmath.blogspot.ca/2014/01/using-pictures-to-prepare-for-mfm-2p.html

Here's another one from Alex, this time featuring the cup stacking challenge. I like this for two reasons. One it can be used really easily to visually show the idea of initial value (if you stack them inside each other and keep them linear) and two, I love his pictures of the various cup configurations.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D, MFM2P
http://slamdunkmath.blogspot.ca/2014/05/open-strategy-cup-stacking.html

When I was at OAME a few weeks ago, I sat in on a session about math tools in the intermediate classroom and learned about the concept of a "field of zeros" when using algebra tiles. So I made this video on how to multiply with them.

Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MFM1P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOGsZ2PFcI8

I just found out that someone else I know has done a TEDx talk. Take look at Amy Lin talk about what it means to think "math-ishly" and then check out her blog: http://amylin.me/
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gW9g8Ofi8A

Can you trademark the Pi symbol? Apparently an artist has tried to do just that (with an added period after it). Then tried to send cease and desist orders to online sites that sold Pi t-shirts. Me thinks the whole thing is performance art though. More info here. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.wcvb.com/video/buzz60/artist-trademarks-pi-symbol-starts-issuing-cease-and-desist-letters/26310610

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the Spurious Correlations blog which shows graphs and data of unrelated things that are correlated with each other. I recently found out that these data sets are all found by software that mines the Internet to find unrelated data sets that can be correlated. So that being said, I think I am going to be posting interesting ones as I see them. Here's one that correlates Nicholas Cage films and number of people drowned by falling into a swimming pool.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=9236

This is kind of a neat idea. Make your own math buttons and then sell them on Zazzle. These ones are all to do with calculus. Reminds me a bit of the Big Bang Theory when they made Penny Blossoms (which you can't buy here)
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
http://untilnextstop.blogspot.ca/2014/05/calculus-buttons.html

Do you need some data that might pique the interest of your students? Who knew there was a punch in the face emoji?
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-100-most-used-emojis/

Math Links for Week Ending May 30th, 2014

 I really like this little intro activity for circumference from Andrew Stadel. I think any time that you can pull at students misconceptions then its a good thing. In this case its the disconnect between the size of the diameter and the size of the circumference. The vehicle is a bet about how high a glass is compared to how round. In my own class I would probably do this live and have several glasses and cylinders to have students eventually discover that the circumference is a little more than 3 times the diameter.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8
http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/2014/05/going-round-in-circles.html

Here is a neat idea for making tedious calculations a bit more palatable. Play the Would You Rather game. Give them a scenario and then have them choose based on two choices within that scenario. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mrjonesmath.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/day-2-of-state-testing/






Fawn Nguyen has done a great job of summarizing the data from the McDonalds Monopoly game. She includes the spreadsheet for analysis all the prizes. For the younger grades (7&8) you can just concentrate on the odds and some anecdotal stuff but for grade 12 students you can extend to expected value. One of the things that I like that she did was tried to compare the prize purse for Canada and the US and found that indeed they are somewhat proportional.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://fawnnguyen.com/2014/05/04/mcdonalds-monopoly-game.aspx

Now some may poo poo having kids use stickers to indicate how they are doing but when ever you can get kids to self assess then you are actually helping them move forward cognitively. So having kids indicate how they thought they did on an assessment is a step in that direction. We have had success in doing this with learning goals but here Check out how Julie has done that in her class here.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://ispeakmath.org/2014/05/21/stickers-for-self-assessment/




And one more from Julie at I Speak Math. In grade 8 we have to teach Pythagorean theorem but in a way that students are to discover the geometric property. If you have snap cubes then that is an easy way to do this.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8
http://ispeakmath.org/2014/05/15/discovering-the-pythagorean-theorem-with-cm-cubes/





I really like sorting activities. And this one is from the Shell Centre was pointed out by Mary at the M^3 blog. It's about sorting different representations of simple polynomial functions (including factored and non factored forms). She spread out the images and text over two posts and I like how she showed some student work that had mistakes in it. You can get the templates of the handouts here.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM2P
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2014/05/day-68.html
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2014/05/day-69.html



For the stat heads out there (and those who love baseball), Wolfram Alpha has now entered piles of baseball stats into their database. Check them out here
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U
http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2014/05/05/going-going-gone-and-into-wolframalphas-baseball-data-collection/

I don't agree but it is still funny. Thanks to Timon Piccini for this one
Curriculum Tags: All

Math Links for Week Ending April 11th, 2014

I have been showing this example from Deborah Ball for about a year now. I really like how she really articulates what distinguishes a good math teacher from someone who just knows how to do math. The neat thing is she does it in front of the Michigan legislature. For a longer talk by Dr. Ball on this topic you can click here.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2014/04/02/the-infinite-variety-of-wrong-answers/

I am fascinated by this Veronoi Diagram. Each dot represents an airport and the regions represent areas that are closest to that airport (compared to another airport). So the lines separating the regions represent places that are equidistant to the nearest airports. Its a really neat geometric property that could be adapted to the geometry units in grade 7&8 connecting to quadrilaterals. On the site the diagram is an interactive so that the entire globe's airports are mapped out. Thanks to @ddmeyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.jasondavies.com/maps/voronoi/airports/

I like it when concepts can be introduced in unique ways. Here Mathy Cathy does has an interesting way to introduce compound events in probability. A simple true and false test (with random answers). Kind of reminds me a bit of the March Madness contest but on a smaller scale.
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.mathycathy.com/blog/2014/03/true-or-false/




I like Kyle's Baby Beats 3 Acts task. Proportional reasoning is a topic that needs as many varying tasks to help students get a handle on it.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://tapintoteenminds.com/2014/03/25/making-connections-proportional-reasoning/



We have seen cell phone plan questions before. And they all have a little bit of the pseudo math thing going on. But this one takes a slightly different take. Instead the standard fixed monthly cost and then a per minute charge (which is typically not how a phone plan works anymore) it has the fixed cost and then the extra cost for more data. A little more realistic.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
http://www.yummymath.com/2014/cell-phone-plans/

I am a sucker for raw data. On this site Visualizing.org not only is there neat visualizations but they have all kinds of raw data. Check out this set on over 40,000 meteorites. Enjoy.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://visualizing.org/






Speaking of data, who doesn't like sports data. This post does a great job of summarizing places you and your students can get sports data. Thanks to Free Technology for Teachers for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2014/03/sports-data-sites-2370

Another one from Free Technology for Teachers is about four sites for free graph paper (of many types): Imcompetech, Print Free Graph Paper, Math Drills, Gridzzly. Some other graph paper sites include Printable Paper, Math Worksheet, Dynamic Paper, Free Online Graph Paper, & Math Bits.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2014/03/four-sources-of-print-on-demand-graph.html

I have been known to have a bit of heavy foot while driving. So it's ironic that I have been saying that speeding doesn't get you there much faster (in general). I even wrote a task about it about 10 years ago. You can download it here. But now you have the data to show you in what situations speeding could possibly pay off. Its a really great way to talk about rational functions.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U
http://lifehacker.com/does-speeding-really-get-you-there-any-faster-1556767685

Lots of Articles this week. Here's one with our education minister talking about how we need to go back to basics. If she's on that bandwagon then I guess she doesn't get it.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/ontario-education-minister-wants-the-basics-learn-your-multiplication-tables/article17666049/

Not so much for intermediate and senior math but none the less the idea is still good. In terms of problem solving we don't tap into our youngest kids enough
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/are-we-underestimating-the-math-powers-of-our-youngest-students/

Here's an article on how women are using their training in STEM fields to create entirely new jobs
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/this-is-not-your-fathers-stem-job/359684/

This post about the statistical probability that global warming is happening (99.9%). But those deniers will then say "So there's a chance". Totally reminds me of this clip from Dumb and Dumber
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-statistical-probability-that-climate-change-is-natural-is-01-percent

Who knew Cindy Crawford when to school for Chemical Engineering (I'm sure some did)? But listen to her talk about how she was on the wrong end of a stereotype from her calculus prof
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/cindy-crawford-calculus-professor-judgment_n_5065616.html

I was shopping with my daughter the other day and saw this sign for a sale. I like it because the implication is that it's a 60% discount but, in fact, the successive discounts work out to 52%. The math is all right on the sign but it would be a good discussion for grade 7&8 students about percents.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
instagram.com/p/mduvdTx66Y/

Some common thoughts about cancer that data shows is false

1. Unless treated, cancer is fatal
2. The earlier you diagnose and treat it the greater the chance of being cured

The article below talks about how those two are not necessarily true. As a hint, take a look at the graph below.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/102/9/605.full

Some fun examples of bad math. I have seen some of these before but these two below I haven't
Curriculum Tags: All
https://sftimes.co/?id=411