Mathematics is a language. And while the
rules and vocabulary of any language can be learned in the
abstract, in order to become truly fluent those rules and
vocabulary need to be practiced and applied in context; in
application. The goal of the growing library of Math Connections applications is to present specific math topics
in context providing students with the chance to gain fluency.
Learn, for example, about sine curves in the context of seasonal
and climate change in an agricultural setting. Or learn about
correlation as applied to important health issues. And in the
process learn about a variety of graphic tools that can be used to
engage, visualize, and express mathematical concepts and relations
- including crossing curricular bounds into the social studies
with GIS.
Each of the short units listed below provides interactive graphing and mapping tools to
explore the content. In addition, students are encouraged to make
use of graphing calculators or online applications such as Demos.
Units
Contents
Math
Social Studies
- Exponential vs. linear change
- Exponential functions
- Semi-log graphs
- Transforming exponential equations
- Thomas Malthus
- Population growth
- Staple food production
- Correlation
- Line of best fit
- Linear equations
- Tobacco use
- Health issues: CHD, cancer
- Sinusoidal change
- Characteristics of sine curves
- Transformations of sine curves
- Modeling with sine functions
- Climate change
- Ag impacts of climate change
- Basic statistics review
- Box & Whisker Plots
- Characteristics of normal probability curves
- Understanding of Student's t statistic
- t-Test Comparison of group means
- Concussion in Sports
- The NFL Combine
Cigarettes, CHD, Cancer & Correlation
- Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults in the United States is a report from the Center for Disease Control breaking down cigarette usage by a variety of socioeconomic factors.
- This World Health site gives an overview of the health benefits of not smoking - and they are not all to the person who quits: Fact sheet about health benefits of smoking cessation
- From 20 minutes to 15 years this American Cancer Society reports identifies the Benefits of Quitting Smoking Over Time
- "Correlation does not imply causation." Just because two variables are correlated does not mean that one causes the other. To drive this point home check these Crazy Things That Correlate With Each Other
A Malthusian World?
- Wikipedia provides a short biography of Thomas Malthus.
- Malthus' views have been shared most recently by Stanford biologist Paul Erlich in the 1960s. Erlich's predictions were even more dire than those of Malthus as this article suggests: Thomas Malthus: Wrong Yesterday, Right Today?
- Changes in energy, technology, science have all had an impact on the dramatic increase in world wide agricultural production over the last several centuries. This National Geographic history of Agriculture provides an overview.
- No aspect of agricultural science has had a greater impact or caused more controversy than biogenetics. This essay from PBS addresses the question: Should We Grow GM Crops? and discusses the related controversies.
Vine & Sine
- Oregon Wine History is a concise history of wine grape production in Oregon. A Complete Napa Valley California Wine History from Early 1800s to Today provides a similar look into the history of grapes and wine in the Napa Valley.
- The Khan Academy offers a series of videos on Graphing Sinusoidal Functions using a transformations approach,
Bigger & Faster
-
How Students' Brains Are in Danger on the Field is a summary of issues related to concussions in high school sports from The Atlantic Monthly in 2017.
- The Student's t-Test video from Paul Anderson at Bozeman Science does a great job of explaining the use of the formula and the statistic.