Windy News

The Big Tree Take Down

The wind brought it down to its present position. How would you bring it to the ground without further damage?

Here's what the experts did.

I do wonder why the chain saw guy stopped cutting it and was told to saw it elsewhere. I was too busy filming and didn’t think to ask.

I was looking for math in their solution to the problem. But what I learned is that if you have the right tools and the know how to use them properly the job becomes a “no brainer.”

There obviously is a lot of science here. Any suggestions as to how the science might inform the math?

Noon Day project begins this week - March 8, 2010

The Goal of the Noon Day Project is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago. Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results. From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the earth.

Watch as Carl Sagan describes some of the background surrounding Eratosthenes' experiment in this 6 1/2 minute video.

Follow me on Twitter (Hashtag #noonday) As I recreate the experiment that Eratosthenes did. I hope to my measurements on March 17 weather permitting.
There is some good background material on the measurement at the Noon Day project site hosted by the CIESE (Center for Innovation in Engineering & Science Education) - Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.

Get real "Do Nows" to kick start your math class

"Do Now" classroom openers are all the rage these days (i.e. Everday Math). Why not reach out of the box and do one that's timely for the day you do them? Today is the day (3/1/10) after the Olympics closed and by the latest count the USA, Germany and Canada were the biggest winners.

What if we wanted to give a gold medal to the country that "won" the Olympics how would you decide? One way might be to assign 3 points for each gold medal won, 2 for the silver and 1 for the bronze. (This is similar to how they determine standings in the National Hockey League.) Who would be the winner? Would Canada's 14 gold medals compensate for their lower total of medals than the USA? (See a Google Spreadsheet with the results.) Feel free to edit it! Help me turn this "do now" into an activity worth exploring.

WCYDWT defined?

Blog entry - 2/13/10 updated 3/1/10

Two Excellent Entries For The WCYDWT Course Catalog

February 9th, 2010 by Dan Meyer

Kate Nowak:

Here’s what basically has to happen to make a successful WCYDWT lesson:

1. Lighting strikes (you observe something).
2. You recognize that lightning has struck (you say “holy *&^%”).
3. You investigate by building layers of abstraction on your observation.
4. You realize that that particular abstraction fits in your curriculum.
5. You strip away all those layers to a core question interesting to a 15 year old, who (I’m sorry and draw whatever conclusions you will about me or my school system) are the least interested people on the planet.
6. You rebuild the abstraction in a way that will support the questions you successfully predict they will ask.
7. You make attractive keynote slides out of it.
8. You extend your original abstraction to questions that they will want to pursue to enhance their understanding.

This is a pioneer profile of a WCYDWT activity. The education world will never be the same once this becomes mainstream. Why? Because it encourages teachers to break out of the mold and be creative in "lesson planning" whether its in the box (brick & mortar school) or out in the virtual world probably a combination of both.

In one of Amazon's user reviews of Seth Godin's latest book "Linchpin: Are you Indispensible?" the reviewer writes:

Linchpin is a most unusual, well-organized, concise book about what it takes to become indispensable in the workplace - whether you work for someone else (at any level) or are self-employed. It's about how business has rapidly changed and how treating employees like factory workers (or doing your job like one) doesn't work any longer. We must make choices and take action to "chart our own paths" and add value that others do not. We cannot wait for a boss or a job description to tell us what to do, rather we must just take the initiative ourselves. Only then can we become indispensable "linchpins," rather than replaceable "cogs."

(This is a key to educators becoming "life long learners".)

Get ready, get set, go Educon 2.2 with a math spin (I hope)

So here I am ready to do Educon 2.2. Since the event is in Philly and I'm at home I got my tweetdeck set up to view tweets that I follow along with tweets that contain #educon and #noneducon in their message. Let the circus begin....

I'm back from my first go at it. Lasted about 45 minutes. What did I make of it so far? I'm reminded of what computers were said to do most of the time: GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. It wasn't really that bad. A #educon tweet told me about an interview the writer did with Seth Godin and that transcripted in her blog. His views on education. Interesting. I followed my mind drift and clicked on an intervew Seth gave on his quidoo.com website as I was being bombarded by a cacophony of tweet flashes every few seconds or so it seemed. There's something fun about this blitz of info. Nothing about math. but then retrieving relevant stuff is like catching the proverbial needle in the haystack. There has got to be a better way. The show begins tomorrow. This time I will be ready for Math!

PS - I missed the virtual feed of the panel discussion at Franklin Institute. I wonder if it actually happened.

Was Belicheck's math right when he said: "I thought it was our best chance to win."

Was Bellichick's math right when he said "it was our best chance to win." I agree with him. Kick or pass: Which was a higher probability? Anyone want to offer an analysis?

Here's mine.

Probability of Patriots getting a first down on 4th and 2? I say 90%. It's only a guess but given the Patriots football prowess along with the element of surprise, I say they would have made it on average 9 out of every 10 times they tried it. On the other hand, punting to the Manning machine is a shaky 50-50 proposition at best. Also, what are the chances the receiver would bobble the ball? Video of play.

What do you think?

WCYDWT (What can you do with this): How Big is the Gorilla?

Here's a good slide to show to start a conversation about decimals with your class. The first question that comes to my mind is: So, really, how big is this gorilla? What are some of the questions that come to your mind?

Most textbookish review sections for decimals are pretty boring. How might this help? Putting a common idea in a interesting, surprising way will get the kids attention. Now how do achieve your math objective with that?

Source: Wired Magazine (Nov. 2009) p. 45. I had to scan it; couldn't find it on the Web.)