Thursday, August 4, 2016

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 4: Lesson Inspiration - Audible Books, Shows, Random places

So a friend of mine got me started on Audible in December, which ended up being perfect in multiple ways.  It's been great since I've spent a lot of time in the hospital with my mom over the past 9 months and I've actually gotten some inspiration for various math lessons since then through the books I was listening to.

The first was from Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs.  This series is what the TV Bones is loosely based off of (if your read it expecting everything to be the same as in the TV show you will be disappointed).  

In it someone is killed and there is an in depth discussion of blood spatter evidence and how the point of origin was previously calculated using the string method, compared to how it is now calculated with a program and utilizing various functions.  I came up with an extension for some of the Algebra 2 students that dealt with using the absolute value function to find the point of origin and made an additional extension for the PreCalculus students to do it with trig functions.  Placing it in PreCalc really is more appropriate but I thought it would be interesting for some students to do it in both courses and compare their findings and see which is more precise.  I'll upload that lesson once I get it more flushed out after working it with some students.


Another inspiration that came to me just yesterday was from The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerriotsen.  These books are about Rizzoli & Isles (another great TV detective show, I might have an addiction to these) and again, the TV show is loosely based on the novels.  Lots of little differences between the books and the show.  In The Mephisto Club someone is leaving clues behind and at one uses the eye of Ra.  The eye of Ra, also known as the eye of Horus and the all seeing eye, is an early use of math and each part represents half of another piece.  

(from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/shayna-or-sheness-israel/all-seeing-%E2%80%9Ceye%E2%80%9D-proprioceptors-electrodes-pick-brainwaves)

I'm not quiet sure yet how I'm going to use this in an lesson other than maybe when doing geometric regression, but it's definitely something I want to try and incorporate next year.  Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Before I've also gotten inspiration for math questions or lessons while at live shows when thinking about where the best sound will be or watching a show being filmed when someone is using a Jib Jab.

(from http://jgbroadcast.tv/)

I'm curious what are some of the interesting or different ways you've gotten inspiration for a lesson or question to pose to your students.  I'm looking forward to hearing about it!

4 comments:

  1. Intriguing post! Now I need to get to the library to do a little reading!

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