Average Traveler Activity Redux

At the NCTM Conference last April I did what I call the Average Traveler activity with the 36 math educators who attended my session "Math 2.0: Scenes from a Dynamic Classroom."
Based on the distances that each attendee traveled to get to this conference, I asked who in this room would represent the average distance traveled? Guesses ranged from 200 to 800 miles. Since we didn’t have access to computers to do this in real time, I used the distance from each attendee’s school (or administrative office) to the Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA (where this session took place) to figure this out. I added placemarks at each school's location using Google Maps and used the distances provided by the software. Which school’s placemark do you think is closest to the average distance that the participants traveled to this conference? The yellow marker is the site of the conference.

I used Geometer’s Sketchpad to draw a circle with the location of the session at the center and the radius of the circle gives an estimate of the distance to the various schools represented. By changing the radius of the circle I could approximate what the average was. The radius of the circle in the image is 809 miles which is the approximate value for the average. Note there are no schools that are candidates for being closer to the average distance than Mr. Fogg. Take a look at Google Maps and identify your location. The sites are open for you to make corrections and updates.

Here is a Google spreadsheet of the relevant data.

Please post your comments or questions about this activity below.

In Search for the Last Digit of Pi

Fig. 1

Ever wonder what the last digit of Pi is? Well, if you are one of those in the know, you know that there is no such thing. Pi is irrational. Right? And you know that the decimal expansion of Pi (3.14159...) goes on forever without any recurring patterns. 

Fig. 2

But what about this headline back in 2004? 

Did this really happen? Read the rest of the article by clicking on it. What do you think?

"The Last digit of Pi" is the title of Dan Cohen's very interesting blog about how some people passionately pursue the last digit despite knowing that they will fail. It's also a nice story about the evolution of knowledge about Pi. He also has done an entertaining TED talk on the topic. 

Sunday Morning (CBS) highlights Pi Day

This a recent segment about Pi day.

For more Pi Day resources see my Pi Day page.

My favorite Pi Day activity is the Buffon Needle Experiment. See my lesson. See also this link. See also Matthew Blake's cool simulation of the needle experiment.

Here we go again

Latest issue of Summing Up

Latest "NCTM Summing Up" posts the inevitable. More study needed. What a surprise. As if we haven't done enough studies already! It's business as usual. The major players in the math ed community want to have fun telling us what we should be doing with our students using scare tactics to get the nervous public to go along with their latest hype. We're still a "Nation at Risk" and will continue to be as long as the "hafta-do" curriculum rules in most schools. Kids need to be heard more and college professors less because the current paradigm is not making any substantial improvements in teaching school math.

Google's latest math trick

(Click on image to go to blog entry.)

Compare the Google result with WolframAlpha. Since we search all the time it's convenient to have this feature inside of Google. But we've had WolframAlpha for while. So it's good to have choices. Right? Well, most of the time. With vulnerable math students using the same graphing software can be a plus. Think of it as a bicycle with training wheels. Once the training is successfully over switching bicycles can indeed be fun. But most math students have struggled with staying on the bicycle even with training wheels moving from one software app to another until they collide head on with their fragile knowledge of math and give up. (Refer to my "Ok, if you say so." story in Mathematical Encounters.)  

Google

WolframAlpha

Noon Day project measurements begin this week- September 19, 2011

Carl Sagan tells the story (6.5min)

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.

Doing the measurements

Follow me on Twitter (Hashtag #noondaymeasure) as I recreate the experiment that Eratosthenes did. I hope to do my measurements on September 22 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.

Brother, can you spare a quarter (or something like that?)

          Misconceptions revisited...

How much do the pencils cost?

Two different versions of the same thing?

Example from mathatube.org (2:19)

Video makes it more interesting. Right? Wrong.. It's still boring....