When Will I Ever Use This?

The most common complaint that students have about mathematics and algebra in particular is "When am I ever going to use this". Today algebra is ON TRIAL.

Task

You are part of a team from the public defenders office and have been appointed to defend the various topics that you will be studying throughout this year. Each of student will need to

1. research the history of your topic, including prominent mathematicians involved with that topic,

2. show how your topic is used in the "real world",

3. find a person who uses that and e-mail questions to them on their use of mathematics

4. find ways that you might use this topic today.

The following is a list of topics from which to choose. The product will be a trial brief that you will use to present your material to the class. Each person in your team will be responsible for presenting one of the points of the defense to the class.

· Graphing and slope

· Pythagorean Theorem

· Integers

· Ratios and proportion

· Inequalities

· Polynomials and Exponents

· Solving equations

· Quadratic equations

Process

Part 1
The history of your topic can be gathered from several resources - your text, encyclopedias, other library resources or from sources of math history on the internet. This portion should be about 1 typed page.

The Math Forum
[http://forum.swarthmore.edu/]

Part 2
Real world uses can be gathered from several sources. A starting place is your text where you can gather occupations that use your topic. Create several (4-6) sample problems that would demonstrate real world use.

Ask Dr. Math
[http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/drmath.middle.html]

Part 3
Write a e-mail letter using "Ask An Expert" to find out about their real life usage of your topic.

Ask An Expert
[http://www.askanexpert.com/askanexpert/cat.shtml]

Part 4
Survey a non-math teacher to find out which of the topics are used as part of their classes, what math they use in the classroom and what math they use in their lives. (See the list of staff.) Share your information with others in the PD¹s office (your classmates).

See Survey worksheet

Resources

WWWbster Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm The Math Forum
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/

Math History
http://www.aloha.net/~bry/teaching/math.html

History of Math
http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Edu/MathSciGateway/math.html

This is MegaMathematics
http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/menu.html

Ask Dr. Math - Middle School
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/drmath.middle.html

Ask Dr. Math - High School
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/drmath.high.html

Math Images
http://archives.math.utk.edu/images.html

Evaluation

Even though there are some topics in math that you might find more difficult than others, your responsibility is to not let past impressions influence you. You are to prepare a report that "defends" your topic to the best of your ability.

Regardless of your task on your team, use all the talents of your team. Remember, you might be dividing the tasks, but take time to share ideas and give and receive suggestions with each other. You might want to schedule regular times to get together so everyone is kept up to date.

Your project will be evaluated on the following criteria:

· Are all four parts of the brief in the project?

· Are the parts clear and well written?

· Is your information well supported?

· Is your information informative and persuasive?

Web Quest Evaluation Rubric

Conclusion

After all presentations are complete, we will discuss in class what effect you think the information given will have on the way your team and the other students in class look at the topics as they are studied