Day 5

Shodor Main Image Text that says the Shodor Foundation

Maria began the 5th day of MEC by reviewing topics from the previous days. She described a fictional planet and an epidemic. The admiral in charge of the planet used a common mathematical error to imply that only one percent of the population died, rather than fifty percent. This demonstrated math abuse, and helped the students to be able to recognize math abuse in the news media. Maria then went on to revisit the concept of paradoxes, something which will be useful in higher math. The description "the first number not nameable within ten words" is a paradox, she explained, because that description is a name... and only takes eight words. So the first number that can't be named in ten words can be named in eight... but if it can be named in eight, then the description isn't true and it can't be named in eight. Maria also showed them another game, one in which the first player always won.

Anne then took over teaching about psychology. To start with, the students had to figure out what a bell curve was. Anne explained that a bell curve is the kind of graph you get when you graph height, IQ, or some other unevenly distributed factor where a lot of people are average and a few people are far from the average. They then went to a java applet related to bell curves. After going over some key words the students experimented with this applet, and found it fascinating. Another version is was also of some interest to the students, showing how mean, median, and mode could vary separately. After the break the students wondered how many people would fit in the ship from Independence Day. Anne then explained that this could be calculated by making little boxes in the overall shape of the ship, and then calculating the volume of all the boxes. This is also the way you deal with finding the area of the normal distribution and other uneven shapes.

Then, Anne told them to get in four groups. The students then engaged themselves in a hands-on activity to demonstrate the volume part above. They made a model of the Independence Day ship on nailboards using beads, and counted how many beads it took to make the ship. The students loved this, and learned a lot from it. After certificates and T-shirts were handed out, and group pictures were taken, the Math Explorations Club came to a close.