Archives - July 2003

activity of the month | web site of the month | book of the month

Dear Math Teacher,

With temperatures climbing to triple digits and the sounds of chirping crickets punctuating the evenings, mathematics seems a distant memory. We are more likely focused on our favorite beach, mountain cabin, or hammock. But whether we teach in a year-round school or relax and vacation during the summer months, math is still all around us-even in the voices of the crickets. Did you know that as the mercury rises, so does the rate of the cricket's chirping? Your students will be surprised to learn they can determine the temperature with a good level of accuracy by counting the cricket's chirps.

This month's activity provides a simple way to demonstrate this for students.  It also combines four formats for presenting this function: a t-table, a graph, a formula, and the real-life application of a cricket's song. This activity will appeal to all types of learners in your classroom.

To get more tangible and engaging lessons on functions, take a look at our book The Pattern And Function Connection. You can even download a sample activity called "The Great Yo-Yo Festival."

Download This Month's Activity:
"The Sounds of Summer"

The free activity is in PDF file format (230k) and will take approximately 1.5 minutes to download with a 28K modem. Viewing this activity requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click logo to download a free version of Reader.

FREE ACTIVITIES from our books
If your students like this month's project, remember that we offer many other free activities for your use. If you are a trainer of teachers, you can use these activities to help teachers provide rich concept-driven activities and help math come alive in the classroom!
More Free Activities


FREE HANDOUTS from our conferences
Here are more activities you can use with your students! The link below gives you handouts from the December, 2002 conference at Asilomar, California:
Free conference handouts


MATHEMATICS WEB SITE of the Month
The Game of SET
SET, invented by mathematician and computer programmer Marsha J. Falco, is a game of perception and logic, and can be used either for either solitaire or competitive play. This game provides activities involving organizing objects by attribute, and allows students to explore ideas in discrete mathematics. The activities suggested on the website involve mathematics as problem solving, communication, and reasoning. SET encourages your brain to perceive patterns in a new way, and several variations keep you on your toes. At the present time, you can download the shareware version of SET (SETLite) available for Windows 3.1, Win95, Win98, or Mac.


MATHEMATICS BOOK of the Month
How to Solve It, by George Polya
This is a timeless classic which introduces the reader to heuristic - the study of the methods and rules of discovery and invention. It is an outstanding contribution to the study of problem solving. Polya's principal aim is to teach a method which can be applied to the solution of other problems. He shows the reader how to strip away the irrelevancies which clutter our thinking, and guides us toward a clear and productive habit of mind. Included in the book is the "Short Dictionary of Heuristic" which supplies the history, techniques, and terminology of heuristic with brilliant precision.

Here are three online bookstores and a web site specializing in finding prices from many online bookstores. We supply these for your convenience only without recommendation.

Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Powell's City of Books
Best Book Buys

WORKSHOPS & CONFERENCES
Here are upcoming conferences and workshops by Bill and Brad:

• August 4-8, Palmdale, CA, Algebraic Thinking Workshop. Contact Rebecca Cooksey, (661) 456-3025
• Full workshop schedule and registration information.

To host a workshop in your area, or to just send in a comment you can contact Bill and Brad at these email addresses:

Happy teaching, Bill and Brad