Math Links for Week Ending Sept. 25th, 2015

I'm not sure if this is a new offering but it's new to me. From Desmos is their tutorial site. All the tutorial videos and I have always loved their interactive tutorials (really, they are very good). Plus they have them sorted by grade group (elementary, middle school, high school and calculus). This is a great place for your students to start.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://learn.desmos.com/

In Canada we have eliminated the penny. Really, it wasn't that hard. All we had to do was develop some rounding rules so that if you paid in cash, you wouldn't need pennies to get your change. So that means now everything has to be rounded to the nearest nickel (only if you are paying cash - pay by debit or credit and it's exact). So I made a set of I Have, Who Has to help students practice it.
Curriculum Tags: MAT1L, MAT2L
http://engaging-math.blogspot.ca/2015/09/i-have-who-has-making-change-in-canada.html



I think it is always fun to find applications for the fundamental counting principle. And if you didn't know it, there is a new Peanuts movie coming and as a promo you can now "Peanutize" yourself. That is make your own Peanut character. And you do this by choosing a base character, your hair, eyes, mouth, etc So the question would become "How many different characters are possible?" and you could Peanutize yourself in the process.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://www.peanutizeme.com

Why doesn't math show up in the media more often? This post explores that idea. Is it a stigma or that people just don't understand enough about it to recognize that something is news worthy? Regardless, this article from the Columbia Journalism Review explores the idea.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.cjr.org/analysis/do_the_math.php

I am sure that many of you have seen the movie Stand by Me. If not, here'e the Reader's Digest version: Inner city LA teacher, against all odds, teaches students calculus. It's based on a true story and I haven't seen it in a while and I wonder if I would like it as much now. Non the less, I was reminded of this earlier this week. It's the rest of the story behind the movie.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://reason.com/archives/2002/07/01/stand-and-deliver-revisited

In the last couple of weeks I have posted videos on both infinity and infinitesimals, I guess this week it's back to infinity. This time from @vihartvihart
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEz-vGJvaik

I really like this recent video fro Vsauce. It covers the idea of the Zipf distribution and uses examples of words in a document to introduce it. This distribution is basically an exponential decay and would be ideal for any class study exponential functions. And if you skip to 14 min you can see a really neat experiment you can do with paper clips to actually create this distribution. I also love that it mentions one of my favourite apps (for years) called Wordcount (do you show up? Petro just squeaks in at the end between showell and zeigler).
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCT4C, MAT4C, MHF4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE

I saw this tweet from @mraspinall earlier this week and immediately thought of this image
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/ramusallam/status/293775168080314368/photo/1

.@ddmeyer a colleague passed this on to me. Great "pseudo context" reference! pic.twitter.com/htiFqq5e

— Ramsey Musallam (@ramusallam) January 22, 2013

I always like to remind my data management students that we often have fears about things that we shouldn't and don't fear the things that we should (the classic "it's more likely you will get in an accident on the way to the grocery store then a plane crash"). Here's a more relevant one for our kids
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://mashable.com/2015/09/21/selfie-deaths/#LBy5UW545kqV

Math Links for Week Ending Sept. 18th, 2015

In general, I am not a fan of math tricks. I used to love them but have more recently accepted that they are just reinforcing algorithms over understanding. Recently I have been browsing Quora. This is a site where you can ask any question and hope to get a crowdsourced answer. It's kind of like Ask.com but with a better clientele. This question came up the other day "What's a math trick that is not very well known?" There were a bunch of responses, some that I don't know if I would classify as tricks but there were definitely some properties that I had not seen. But I started to think that some of these could be used to have students practice things like using formulas. I like the one about estimating square roots (see image). That could be used in grade 8 as a calculation task, for example. Take a look at some of the others
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-math-trick-that-is-not-very-well-known

One of the main reasons that kids need to study math is that it is the language of science. And often one of the things that is glossed over is how much data analysis is used in science. Unfortunately students will only get a rigorous treatment of data analysis if they take Grade 12 Data Management. Anything else is kind of glossed over in their science classes. That's too bad because it seems like there might be a crisis in the science world about misuse of data (either purposely or accidentally). At the What's the Point podcast they recently did a show where they talked about all the issues that were going on in the science world. This would be a nice discussion starter for students in Data Management
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/podcast-bad-incentives-are-blocking-better-science/

Maybe you remember near the beginning of Ghostbusters, Dr. Peter Vinkmen is doing some psychic testing on some volunteers. Well here's an app that you can use to test that "psychic ability" with your students in the name of probability. This is the Zener Card Test. That is, this is a random image generator and you could use it to collect data with students, study the idea of a running probability, talk about tree diagrams etc. All with an event that has a 20% chance of happening. Fun stuff
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.realsuperpowers.com/zener-card-test

Though I have mentioned many of these tasks here before, I like the fact that @mathletepearce and @mrorr_geek have collaborated to make a single resource that brings together many of their activities in the form of an iTunesU course called Curious Math for Grade 9 Applied math. If you are running an iOS device then it's a great place that combines some great resources and if you don't then Kyle's post below does enough that you could probably use it.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P
https://tapintoteenminds.com/curious-math-on-itunesu/

A new book by Alex Belos is a mathematical colouring book. That is, he has taken many images related to various math topics and encouraged people to colour them. See the link below for four examples (tessolation, sudoku, tiling, Fibonacci)
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/17/nested-fish-and-golden-triangles-adult-colouring-and-the-beauty-of-maths

"John Horton Conway is a cross between Archimedes, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dalí. For many years, he worried that his obsession with playing silly games was ruining his career – until he realised that it could lead to extraordinary discoveries". Thanks to @uWaterloo_CEMC for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/23/john-horton-conway-the-most-charismatic-mathematician-in-the-world

In calculus, when we introduce the idea of the limit, it is often hard to convey the concept of something that is infinitesimally small. Numberphile has tried to do it with their latest video.
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYijIV5JrKg

I was reminded of this earlier this week and it never gets old. Perhaps something you could use if you are teaching about money (or even percents). The idea is the difference between 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents. The first is a short version and the second is the full length

Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MAT1L, MAT2L

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN9LZ3ojnxY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU

Want to get kids interested in calculating volume? Thanks to @mrorr_geek for this one
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/MrOrr_geek/status/644820931668496384/photo/1

Wowsers!! #mtbos pic.twitter.com/45KI1zoSpy

— Jon Orr (@MrOrr_geek) September 18, 2015

Some more math fails here. The first is from this urinal claim. The idea that this urinal saves 88% more water than a 1 gallon urinal implies that a 1 gallon urinal saves water but compared to what. The other things in this post also deal with statements that don't make mathematical sense. Take a look.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://thearmchairmba.com/tag/88-more-water/

Another math fail for you all. When you click on the link and read the comments, the fails continue there as well
Curriculum Tags: All
http://imgur.com/gallery/KgsYK

This would be good in any Data Management class when talking about bias (obviously)

Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://mentalfloss.com/article/68705/20-cognitive-biases-affect-your-decisions

Math Links for Week Ending Sept. 11th, 2015

This is an older site but I was just reminded of it. I love interesting representations of data and in this case, not only do you have that interesting representation but you have it with a bit of health commentary. Sugar Stacks is a site that basically shows how much sugar is in various items by stacking sugar cubes in front.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.sugarstacks.com/

Mary at the Making Math Meaningful is always sharing an array of stuff and since it's the beginning of the year she has an activity that covers multiple posts. The premiss is based on an old story of a seagull trying to drink some water by dropping pebbles into a jar. She then goes on to have students raising the level of water in a cylindrical glass by dropping marbles into it. They then have to use that info to predict how many marbles are needed to get the water to the top. A great linear relations activity.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2015/09/mpm2d-day-0.html
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2015/09/mpm2d-day-1-crow-pitcher.html
http://marybourassa.blogspot.ca/2015/09/mpm2d-day-2-testing-our-models-starting.html

I like this tactile tweak from the Math = Love blog. Students have to be able to classify numbers and we know that natural numbers, are also whole numbers which are also integers and they are all real numbers. So why not show that with nesting boxes? Then give the kids cards to sort
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8

http://mathequalslove.blogspot.ca/2015/09/algebra-2-skill-1-classifying-real.html


Another post from Math = Love highlights several posts that share math versions of the game Taboo. If you don't know what that game is the premiss is that you are given a card with a math word on it. Your job is to get your partner to say that word but you cannot say the other given words on the card. Check her post out for several sets of Math Taboo cards already created by others.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mathequalslove.blogspot.ca/2015/09/math-taboo.html?m=1

This isn't really a TED talk but it was done at TED. It is an interview with the mathematician Jim Simons who turned his powers to the stock market and started a hedge fund that basically made him rich.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_simons_a_rare_interview_with_the_mathematician_who_cracked_wall_street?language=en

and for a more extensive interview, look to this Numberphile video
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0

A number of posts from Yummy math focus on images (see what I did there) that relate to proportional reasoning. Check them out
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P

The first one is done in the form of a Three Act task
http://www.yummymath.com/2015/how-many-times-bigger/

This one takes an old ice cream add and asks how that would compare to now. I like that there is an index calculator to show the difference in what the dollar was worth.
http://www.yummymath.com/2015/wow-only-10-cents/

And the last one asks if the percentage upgrade is worth the extra cost.
http://www.yummymath.com/2015/should-i-buy-the-big-one-2/

Math Links for Week Ending Sept. 4th, 2015

I have mixed feelings about this. I really loved the original TED-Ed talk that showed how finding the midpoint of a line segment is pivotal in animation at Pixar. Now Pixar has teamed up with the Khan Academy to come up with several modules that build upon that original video. There are a lot of videos of Pixar employees talking about the math needed to make animations and teaching some math along the way with interactives and lessons. It's all really good as it gives some real connections for the math. The issue I have is when they get to the actual math, they miss an opportunity. They get the kids interested in this stuff and needing a reason to do the math and then they just tell them the math. That would be a perfect opportunity to have them discover the math (when you have them interested). I guess the good news is that the sections are so modular that you can just insert your own discovery portions to augment that. The topics covered include: midpoint, weighted average, transformations, trig and combinatorics. It is definitely worth a look. Or at least look at this article about the project.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM2D, MFM2P, MDM4U
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar

A new blog has emerged from the MTBoS. Better Questions mission is to have an open discussion on how to ask better questions in math class. It will have possible questions to ask, what actually got asked, what students asked and what they wished they had asked. The blog has only been around for a few weeks but there are many posts already so head on over there to get a sense of the discussion or to contribute yourself. Thanks to @marybourassa for pointing this out

Curriculum Tags: All

https://betterqs.wordpress.com/

I have been using and promoting the idea of a close line number line for a few years now (check out the banner image of my other blog to see an example).  Andrew Stadel's recent blog post is about the different ways to use a number line. We like keeping them up in class all the time and they can be used in just about every grade. I personally am a fan of using them with functions (ie place x on a numberline - where would 2x go?)

Curriculum Tags: All
http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca/2015/08/clothesline.html

I love when teachers are thoughtful enough to share a butt tonne of work. In this post @misscalcul8 shares her collection of class starters (she calls them Bell Ringers). They are made up of things I have mentioned before (which one doesn't belong, Estimation 180, SolveMe, 101qs) as well as some weekly Mental Math work. The great thing is that she has compiled them into a 180 page slideshow so you could literally do one of these a day for the entire year. Download the slideshow at the post below.

Curriculum Tags: All

http://misscalculate.blogspot.ca/2015/08/bell-ringers-20.html

I am a huge fan of the mashup of extreme sports and math. And @RobbieMaddison continues to give us examples of parabolas in real life. Below is the still, strobe image but at 6:15 in the video you get a perfect side shot of him dropping that could easily be analyzed with Tracker.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P, MCR3U, MCF3M, MBF3C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=36&v=_VHaQeY88po
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_VHaQeY88po/maxresdefault.jpg

I am not sure how long this existed but this Tumblr is new to me. Geometry Matters is a Tumblr that highlights geometry found. A recent post goes along with one I showed last week about a new pentagon that was found to tile the plane. Check out the blog here and the link on Tiling Planes (with a bunch of animated gifs at the link below)
Curriculum Tags: All
http://geometrymatters.tumblr.com/post/127314590769/npr-skunkbear-big-math-news-its-been