Monthly Archives for December 2011
Perihelion
On Wednesday, January 4, 2012, Earth will be as close as it gets to the Sun during its orbit. In this activity students become familiar with the terms perihelion and aphelion as they calculate 1 AU and the perihelion distance in miles and kilometers. … Continue reading
Happy Holiday!
Learn more about us and our philosophy by visiting our blog post at the Innovative Educator. For those of you enjoying a winter vacation and looking for a little Holiday mathematics, try some of our previously posted activities. Holiday Movies … Continue reading
Crop circles
In the travel section of our newspaper this week, Wiltshire, England was a recommended destination to see Stonehendge and crop circles ………….. crop circles? Many of the crop circles in England appear mysteriously overnight. They are often huge but appear … Continue reading
Monopoly, Are you game?
In the board game, Monopoly, does a property’s distance from GO correlate to its rent when you land on it ? Using Brian’s spread sheet (list of properties, distance from GO, rent and rent with properties) students create scatter plots. … Continue reading
Wrapping gifts
Do we cripple students by feeding them the necessary measurements and expecting them to just plug the data into a formula? Engage your class in real life problem solving and development of mathematical ideas. In this activity, Brian asks students … Continue reading
Getting awfully dark out
This year’s winter solstice will be at 7:11 am EST on December 21st . In this geometry/Earth science investigation, we’ve asked students to question the Earth’s latitudinal divisions, recognize its tilt, and appreciate the relationship of these measures and our present … Continue reading
When is Hanukkah?
Tuesday evening, December 20th, is the first night of Hanukkah this year. Students look at the Hebrew calendar and appreciate the incredible mathematics involved in creating a calendar that aligns both our moon’s rotation about the Earth and the Earth’s … Continue reading
Done with the leaves … now for the snow
Brian has spent too much time analyzing his leaf raking. He has created an investigation that asks students to calculate how long it would take different numbers of rakers to finish cleaning his yard of leaves. Students see the inverse … Continue reading
The Euro and the international debt crisis
Lately the news is filled with talk of the Euro, US foreign debt, the fragility of European monetary systems, and the interdependence of all of these crisis. In this activity students become familiar with the Euro, practice translating the Euro’s … Continue reading
