Candid Student Reports

The following (emails) were written by members of the Math Explorers Club during the first session of the program. Some elements may have been removed for various reasons, but the text that remains is in the student's own words.

 Today we did some things that had to do with
Math Abuse . Also we laerned about logical
errors. Well that my report. Short Huh!

Amos

Today we learned about paradoxs and a little 
of chemestry.  We did a cople of sheets on the
difference between a regular question and a 
paradoxic questions.

Danny

Today we did a lot of interesting paradox 
stuff, including making them, identifing 
them, and doing mixed sheets about them.
 We also did some stuff about chemistry in
 the beginning, which was really fun! I can't
 wait for tommorow

Brendan

I had very fun today.  W e played a game called Cartman 
and some worksheets on math abuse.

Karif

Today I learned more about percents and that
lots of people make logical mistakes or errors.
Maria (our Teacher) Has an accent that is from
Russia. She is also pregnant with a baby.
She dosen't quiet know what it is. It has been
really fun working here at The Shodor Education
Foundation,Inc.!

Maththew M.

Today I had fun working on the computers, I typed a 
15 page paper on the Math Abuse and I played critical 
thinking games!!!!

Collin ("Joe Cool")

Math Explorations Club is a fun learning experience.  
We learned about math abuse and how companies 
make math errors.  Most of the errors were math 
errors.  The error of one magazie advertizement 
was that they promised to pay you money because 
they said 500-900% discount. We reasearched the 
Tropicania Extra calcium and Vitiman C Orange juice.
Nutrian Facts on the Calcium Enriched OJ said the 
calcium percentage was 35%. According to th box 
of Calcium Enriched OJ it has 1/3% more calcium
than regular OJ. Which means that regular OJ has 
34 and 2/3% Calcium which is really colse to 35%. 
That is an example of math abuse. We also learned 
about Logic error.  When someone writes a statement
that repeats itself only useing different words that 
is a logic error.

Kristin and MkKenzi

I enjoyed exploring the wonders of math. I learned the 
different ways in which people abuse math.I also saw 
how people make simple errors that convince others. 
Major companies such as Tropicana premium and Ocean
spray change the nutrician fact inorder to please the 
eye of the buyers. Math abuse can also effect other 
businisses for example, Tropicana said that regular O.J 
as  one third less vitamin C then Tropicana. Tropicana did
not say weather or not it was one third percent. Either 
way one third  and one third percent is a very small 
amount. We also focused on logical errors. Logical 
errors include saying a statment that contradict ech other.

Wledeh

Camp was fun today.  We learned what math 
abuse was, and I learned what pneumonultra 
microscopiccsilia volcaniconiosis is.  Camp was
fun and I can't wait till tomorrow.

Brandon

I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot in this class. I 
have been to other classes like this and have 
enjoyed them and many of the things I learn help me 
later with other things.


William

 Today we studyed paradoxes. We each took a look at
 different situations and talked about it.

Wledeh and William

 Today we started class with Bob2 teaching us a little
 chemistry. After that we did a lot of stuff with paradoxes.
 We had worksheets we had to do. They were a lot of fun.
 My favorite part was when we made up paradoxes and when
 we read the paradoxes on the worksheet. This class was
very interesting and fun.  


Tomas

Today we played on the computers.
It was very fun.

"Lizard"

It was really fun I did better today then yesterday.
I am so glad that I get to come here and learn. The
things I really like the sheets we do. I really don't
like  math but now that I came they made math more fun.
And I also like working on the MAC. And I made 
some new friends. And I also met one of my old 
friands Matthew. I really dont have any more 
to say ... so bye .  

 MkKenzi

Today was a great day for us at the Math Explorations 
at Shodor...! We had a really good time learning about
Paradox sentences and everying. It was great!!!

Matthew

 Today was fun. We learned about paridoxes and othe stuff.
We also learned about energy and stuff. I can't wait till
tommorow! Because it is game day. We will
 be playing games
all day.

Amos

 Another fun filled day at Math Exploration Club.  
Today we worked with Paradoxs and finding 
contridictions with paradoxs.  A paradox is really 
just a statement that contridicts itself and 
common sense.  There are 4 main types of Paradoxs. 
 Predicting the future is one example of a paradox, 
that kind of Paradox is usally sounding like : i'll 
throw a party today, only if I win the lottery 
Next week.  the seacond way a paradox is classified 
is Sets that are not members of them selfs. an example
is At my House everyone helps themselfs.  Yesterday 
My sister  helped everyone who didn't help themselfs.  
Did she help herself? The other two ways of 
classifing Paradoxs is by Self reference
 and Circular Reference.  One example of a 
conbination of Circular  and self references is : 
St 1: St 2 is ture, St 2: St 4 is ture, St 3: St 3 is 
false, St 4: St 1 is false.  Today we also made up
 our own Paradoxes classified under each type.  
Because Paradoxs are so interesting and fun to 
figure out that we spent all day working with them.

Kristin

Today in class we did Peradoxes.  There was 
one about a genie. It was not a Peradox but
I thought it was. It was soo.....
grrreee...aaa...t!

Michelle Barreto

 We had fun today , all we did is  paradox and go 
outside.

karif