Math Links for Week Ending July 8th, 2016

I've done and update on our Pythagorean Area activity so that it now includes an Explain Everything version. The premiss of this activity is that students are given sets of squares and asked to create triangles using the sides of the squares. Some of the sets will produce right triangles and they are supposed to notice that the sum of the areas of the smaller square equals the area of the larger one. The original activity is done as a hands on activity but now, if you have iPads, you can do it entirely using Explain Everything.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MFM1P, MPM1D

Here's a cool resource: Unsolved K-12 was a conference in Banff that looked for famous problems in mathematics that could be linked to each of the K-12 grades. Watch the intro video, below, and this slideshow and then go to the website to check out all of the cool problems. Thanks to @ddmeyer for this one and don't miss his blog post about it (incuding the comments) for even more great links.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://mathpickle.com/unsolved-k-12/

I love this essay from @jamestanton on why we factor quadratics (spoiler alert: he doesn't think it's important). And as much as I am a fan of quadratics (especially the quadratic formula - that's another story), I am totally with him. I will go even further, most of the stuff we teach is not needed. It's just stuff. So read on.
Curriculum Tags: MPM2D, MFM2P, MCF3M, MBF3C, MCR3U
http://www.jamestanton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Curriculum-Essay_July-2016_Factoring-Trinomials.pdf

Do you wanna have fun with factoring? Then why not discuss highly composite numbers with this video from @numberphile
Curriclum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JM2oImb9Qg

I love this animated gif that shows with the same perimeter you can have different areas.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/mathemaniac/status/749770285495095296

You can slide the edges of a rectilinear shape such that the perimeter stays the same while the area is changing. pic.twitter.com/enHHivv5fJ

— Simon Pampena (@mathemaniac) July 4, 2016

Yes this is American data but it still might be of interest to your students. Which states take the most selfies while driving. The data was gathered from Instagram by looking at hashtags. Even if it just to discuss the idea of collecting data from social media sites like Instagram, Twitter etc then I think this is worth it.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/these-states-take-the-most-drivingselfies-and-they-need-to-stop/

Some fun stuff from @BenOrlin where he draws about what students see when they look at algebra. Check the post out to see them all
Curriculum Tags: All
https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2016/06/22/what-students-see-when-they-look-at-algebra/