|
Winter ‘06 Math
Project (
60 points
Dates Preliminary
title due OCT 13
Project Due Monday Nov 10
 Description:
A project in which
you
interact ** in a significant way with some mathematical topic.
This topic could be geometric, statistical, numeric or other.
what I am looking for and what your grade will be
based on is:
your reflection and
description of the puzzling out,
and thinking
and the
doing
(computation of some kind even if it doesn’t involve numbers) of the
mathematics you are dealing with
Grading :
Grading :
A If you do not want a D or lower, make sure you are doing a
significant project
involving 12
to 15 hours of work.
Ask me if you are not sure that your project is sufficiently significant
or
mathematical. If you do something significant and think it might not be
obvious how much work was involved, explain that to me and I will
consider what you say.
Example of a Bad Tangram project: A cheesy little project
that has a picture of a
tangram and 3 taped down examples of tangrams shapes that you
made by copying
some picture you found somewhere , ( and that somewhere not even
referenced )
Example of a Good Tangram project: might include the
background of tangrams, Some challenging tangrams arrangement, your
experience in doing the challenging tangrams, the experience of some
other friends who you have try the same puzzles, An explanation of
the quantitative skills involved, some middle school lesson plans using
tangrams and some experiments with some middle school children and
tangrams ( I have some ideas as to where you could find some middle
school children ) and an interview with the professors at UD in the
math department who
teach the Education Math sequence, and all this properly referenced
B.) properly referenced
C.)
significant personal involvement in the ideas
D.)
as
always, proper grammar and spelling
misc.
groups?
some of these projects are best done by a team of two. It is much
easier to construct Platonic solids from soda straws if one person
holds and one person threads string.(do not do the platonic solids
unless you include background information from http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit6/unit6.html)
It would be much easier to go around measuring buildings with one person
to hold the string and check the other’s measures (you would get a
couple of extra points if you can get a second year or later civil
engineering major who has taken surveying to go around with you, and I
can’t even image how many extra points for getting a civil engineering
professor to go around with you, (I don’t even know if they speak to
liberal arts undergraduates ,” just kidding”) If 2 or
more are in a project there would need to be enough more work done to
justify more people working
resources : I have resources available for many of the visually
oriented projects and other resources
the online book Squaring the Circle :Art
and Geometry is very good for what it has http://math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/eBookshelf/art/SquaringCircle.html
ideas
: Many ideas
are mentioned on an old web page of mine on the server
http://academic.udayton.edu look there first
other ideas
The mathematics of
perspective, including the classical perspective of the high
Renaissance, Cubist perspective, Matisse’ perspective, etc perhaps
including original examples you produce
http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit11/unit11.html
Interviews with
the professor’s in the math department finding out (in layman’s
language) their area of interest and research
Paper models of
topological objects ( like a paper Kline bottle ) ) and a reflection on
the process and the quantitive skills involved
If you liked
geometrical constructions in high school geometry there are some great
design projects based on these
Geometrical
constructions involving spirals especially the Fibonnaci spiral that is
in Chapter 9 of our book
Hyperbolic
non-Euclidean geometry and tiling the hyperbolic plane
Coloring knots
In
music: harmonies: what is going on?
examples of Southern Gospel, the Alleluia chorus from the
Messiah, shape note singing
what are good proportions for mats or
frames for pictures, does it make a difference if the
picture is small or large, should the mat be the same size on
all sides. What is going
on quantitatively
http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit12/unit12.html
ceramics; how much
tolerance for error is there in the measurements of the ingredients
for glazes.what temperature change over what periods do pieces undergo
in their first firing, in glaze (successive) firings for the body
and glazes used at UD ( for glazes and bodies used other places
( compare regular and raku firings ) how could this be
described mathematically
where should math fit into bilingual education Does
it matter what language you do your arithmetic in? Find out from
bilingual students and see if it makes a difference in how hard they
find doing math ( look at the pre- college level [ a little hard in
Dayton} and at college
is algebra the “gatekeeper to higher education”
what is it about algebra that causes
colleges like UD to insist that their
graduates have a basic competency in it
geometry on the sphere explore how it is like and
different from the plane geometry you learned in high school What
implications does this have for navigation, for determining
flight paths
how do the UD cafeterias decide how much food to
make. If its in the computer what method does the computer
program use to decide. Is there a level of waste that is
considered acceptable is this the same for all the cafeterias, is it the
same in commercial establishments restaurants, fast foods
origami and the platonic solids, collapsoids paper
folding and approximating angles and the regular polygons
spherical modelspherical models of Platonic or
Archimedean solids the math involved
the mathematics of Seminole
Indian patchwork
|
