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Archive Newsletter July 2007

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© Copyright 2007 Lanny Buettner All rights reserved.

First Things First

Summer is a great time to take advantage of the area’s wealth of museums and festivals. I went up to Washington DC on July 7th, where I attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution. The festival was divided into three areas. In one area were arts, crafts, music, and food from Northern Ireland. In the Mekong River area was a similar variety of arts and crafts from Southeast Asia. And there was a section on Virginia, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. When we were looking for a break, we walked a short distance to the Smithsonian American Indian Museum, a four story museum with information and artifacts from American Indians from all over the Western Hemisphere. We finished the afternoon in the museum cafeteria, offering authentic Native American foods. As an extra bonus, outside the museum the Mother Earth concert event had Native American rock musicians performing to a worldwide audience.

Our brief visit barely scratched the surface of the museums of the Smithsonian alone. But you don’t need to go to Washington for great museum and festival experiences. Take time to enjoy Richmond’s Science Museum, the Virginia Fine Arts Museum, the various historical museums, and watch the calendar for festivals and music events all around the city. Enjoy summer and learn exciting new things at the same time! What could be better?

Summer Learning Opportunities from A-Squared Tutoring

Studying in the summer!? Well, not all day long, but summer is a great time to improve your skills in a difficult subject or prepare for a tough course you plan on taking in the fall. A-Squared Tutoring is offering a number of series of sessions designed to help students learn important core concepts in various subjects, including algebra, geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry. Go to ASquaredTutoring.com for more information. Tutoring for SAT and other standardized tests is also available.

Learning Strategy

Write It Down!

One of the surest signs that a mathematics or science student is not learning as much as he or she could is the absence of notes from the class. Another indicator is when the student attempts to write as little possible on homework problems and quizzes.

Classroom notes need not be highly detailed. But definitions should be recorded, examples copied, and important points highlighted.

Just the act of writing something down gets the process of learning off to a firm start. Furthermore, math and science concepts and problem solving techniques are complicated and one cannot remember them just from hearing the ideas spoken or even watching the concepts written down on the board or overhead.

When solving problems, some students seem to think that they will get extra points for managing to get all the problems to fit on one side of one piece of paper. In fact, the student should probably be using about a half a page for each problem. Even a simple problem should have a step or two of the solution process written down, if for no other reason than to give the teacher assurance that the student understands the method and did not just guess or copy the answer from another student.

Writing the steps down in detail requires focus on one thing at a time. When finished, the steps can be reviewed and checked for accuracy. Writing the method down for each problem also helps reinforce the procedure, making it easier to remember and repeat. I tell my students they should do enough problems of the same type that they become bored doing another one. (Not bored because they are not interested in math, but bored because they know the method and writing down presents no challenge and feels like busywork.)

Parents can easily keep an eye on how much a student writes down for any class. The student should be able to provide notes for each class where the teacher presented new material. The notes should be detailed enough that the student can make sense of it later. Homework should provide step by step evidence of how problem are solved. If a student cannot or will not change the bad habit of not writing enough, get him or her to work with a tutor or an older student who knows how to take notes and work out problems.

News from the Worlds of Math and Science

Cell Phones Teach Mathematics!

Cell phones today are really small computers that are more powerful than the mega-computers of the 1960s that took up entire floors of buildings. Phones now allow people to play music, check e-mails, view the Internet, get directions, take still and moving pictures, and … what else? Oh, yes, make phone calls! Now some mathematicians in Israel are turning the computing power of cell-phones into fun ways to learn mathematics.

The idea is that while many students do not have laptop computers, most have cell-phones. The Math4Mobile project provides software that can be downloaded and installed on a cell-phone. The software provides ways to graph functions, solve equations, sketch graphs, fit data points to a formula, and manipulate quadrilaterals (four-sided geometrical figures, such as squares and rectangles).

Not only can students apply the software to a variety of mathematics problems, they can collect data using the phone and analyze the data on the spot. They can then use the phone to discuss problem solving tasks with their friends, meaning your study-buddy no longer has to be in the same room with you.

Go to www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/uoh-mml071007.php for more information. The Math4Moblie project web site is www.math4mobile.com where students can download the software if they have a phone that meets the requirements.

Global Warming and the Need for Mathematics

Is global warming real? Or is it just a scare tactic of politicians and scientists to change the way people vote and spend their money? Many different opinions can be found every day in the news. How can citizens make sense of this important debate?

For a starter, people need to know more about mathematics and how science uses mathematics to understand what is happening to our planet. Some of the most deceptive statements are made by people who deliberately take advantage of the general lack of mathematical savvy in the population. Others rely on ignorance of what is happening in the scientific community to foster doubt about scientific claims they would rather people ignore. So every citizen needs to understand enough mathematics to sort out the reliable statements from the deceptive ones.

New Scientist, an English science magazine, has published a list of 26 myths about global warming, with articles describing the science and mathematics used to understand what is really happening. See Climate Change: A Guide for the Perplexed.

One of the myths is the assertion that what global warming has been observed is caused by changes in the sun’s energy output and has nothing to do with carbon dioxide and industrial gases. Now scientists have conclusively laid this concern to rest by comparing the measurements of solar behavior over the past few decades to the warming trends observed. There have been significant changes to the sun’s energy output since 1985, but if anything, this should lead to a cooler earth.

See Sun's activity rules out link to global warming, published on the New Scientist web site on July 11, 2007. Articles such as these are published for people without advanced scientific and mathematical training. But they must assume a certain minimum understanding of mathematics, statistics, and the methods of science.

Can you make sense of the caption that describes the graph at right?  It reads: “Solar activity (a: sunspots, b: solar cycle, c: magnetic field, d: cosmic rays, e: solar irradiance) made a U-turn around 1985; meanwhile, global temperatures continued to rise (f) (Image: Lockwood / Fröhlich)” 

Make certain you and your family know or are learning mathematics and science. Even if no one in the family has a professional need to use math and science in his or her job, it may make the difference to the future of the earth and the life our descendants will experience because of how we live our lives.

Richmond Education Calendar

A listing of events in the Richmond Area with educational value.