My project(s) will be mostly involved with puzzles. These puzzles
require very simple reasoning and straight forward arithmetic. Students
should be able to find these activities exciting and meaningful. It is
to be hoped that students will be looking at “Geometry” from a different
perspective after they try these puzzles out.
As of today, I am thinking about doing a 3 to 5 day lesson on
“routes”, “knots” and “topology”.
The first unit will be “routes”. This unit will incorporate some
activities such as “Salesman’s Round Trip”, “Get through the Mozmaze”,
“The Bickering Neighbors”, and “The Bridge of Konigsberg”.
(These activities can be found from “Math Puzzles & Games” by Michael
Holt--This book is on sale at Barnes & Noble for $5.98)
The second unit will be “knots”. This unit will incorporate various
useful hitches, ties, wraps, and knots(from “The Klutz Book of Knots” by
John Cassidy--can be found at the children's science section at Barnes &
Noble for $10.95, teacher gets 20% discount there, and “FM 21-76 US Army
Survival Manual” $8.98-Barnes & Noble).
The last unit will be “topology”. This unit will incorporate “Mobius
Band(Strip)”, “Double Mobius Band(Strip)”, “Klein’s Bottle”, “Torus” and
various tricks.(from “Math Puzzles” by Michael Holt and the handouts
from researcher, Chaim Goodman-Strauss and web pages at The Geometry
Center, http://www.geom.umn.edu:80/~strauss/)
These are my tentative lesson plans. I’ll keep everyone posted on any
changes as semester goes on.
Regard,
Charles