NOT BASEBALL

Implementing Creative Real-World Math Projects in a Math for Liberal Arts Course

Mark Mario Erie CC

Margie Dunn Excelsior (Not present)

GENERAL: This started with connections to the standards instead of jumping right in. It was appropriately brief though. The reminder about the AMS Mathematical Moments was useful. It gives theme ideas for projects. I should look at the one on exponential growth and decay.

THEMES: Consumer Math    Statistics         Graphs             Finance            Art

SPECIFIC: Critter Project- get those things that grow in water. Convince the reader that you have determined the growth rate. Discuss if there is false advertising. There are some leading questions about how to measure the critter.

GENERAL: Rubrics are presented as detailed grids. They are weighted in favor of the math concepts. I should probably add detail to the rubrics next semester.

SPECIFIC: Misuse of statistics examples, how do we know if statistics are legitimate. Buy book How to Lie with Statistics Then have students analyze 5 claims. What is wrong mathematically, or what is misleading, incorrect, deceiving, or vague? This could be alternated with the “pictograph project.”

There was a project on real-life types of functions. I could do this with lines and exponentials. We are kind of limited based on our curriculum so the full project might not be appropriate. This could be a pre-calculus project, however.

He has a saving for retirement project so I could alternate with the mortgage project.

Frank Lloyd Wright Windows for a geometry project. This could replace the statistics project in some semesters.