Babies named Cheese and a graph

"(b) The correct number of babies who should be named Cheese is zero. "

An interesting little piece on babies named Cheese.

Nature's Shape - is it the HEXAGON?

In MYP2 on Loy Krathong day at school we had another look at nature's shape by watching another cool video from The Code from the BBC.

So many great questions come from this video.

Oh, we also learnt that waveboarders go beyond the normal times tables. Waveboarders know their 180 times tables because of the turns they make/take on their boards.  Very cool!

Sad Little Square Song, inspired by wanting more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tetrahedron.gif

In MYP4 we've been looking into the Platonic Solids.

Thanks to Kaya of MYP4 for this Polygon Song

Maths and Fashion

If you are interested in fashion or architecture, this article sent by my sister has something for you.

Read about it here

What is Nature's Shape? Does it have a shape? What's your favourite Shape? Do circles make you happy?

In MYP2 we are looking at patterns, and how to communicate what we see using the language of mathematics. This then becomes something we can use to make predictions.

Our Unit Question is "What is nature's shape?" Do you know?

Here is one of my favourite patterns and some of my favourite Mathematics.

Some of my students said "no! anything but Fibonacci" when I first mentioned patterns this year.  That made my mathematical heart and soul ache with sadness for my students. There is so much incredible beauty in nature that can be communicated by the incredible versatility of Mathematics.

I hope this helps to spread the joy and curiosity


Here is the Vimeo Channel of their work.

And if you'd like to get deeper into how they made the video (using gorgeous mathematics) please check out the blog that goes with this video right here.

Leading Architects Design Cool Doll Houses

Twenty famous architects designed doll houses help KIDS, a charity for children with physical and mental disabilities.

This post was inspired by Bpok, Kim and Dreem in MYP4. They are using their google time to develop their Sketchup skills and there is a budding architect amongst them.

Zombies and Relationships - will they last?

In MYP5 we are looking at the mathematical modelling of a Zombie Apocalypse and my sister, Michelle Griffin, posted this in facebook today

Charting 20 Years of Pop-Culture Witches, Zombies, and Vampires from Vulture (a very good read indeed)




And she also posted this very cool statistical study on relationships and predicting their outcomes (stay together or ...).

"It’s not in the stars after all. Instead, it seems, the shape of a person’s social network is a powerful signal that can identify one’s spouse or romantic partner — and even if a relationship is likely to break up"

Here is the fascinating article about it from the New York Times

Cameron Marlow/FacebookA graphical representation of one person’s network neighborhood on Facebook.

The Beauty Of Mathematics - A Video

Humans Will Be Outnumbered By Lego Minifigures

Today we feature some cool maths sent to us from Ajarn Jon.

There is so much mathematics in the world of humanities and here is a cool graph of humans and lego humans.

By 2019, Humans Will Be Outnumbered By Lego Minifigs - Gizmodo

From Gizmodo, where Ajarn Jon found this (it looks like it may have originated from XKCD):

Since their introduction in 1978, Lego's Minifigs have, um, reproduced at a rapid rate. In fact, the toymaker has been making the little fellas at such a pace that they'll outnumber humans by 2019.
As of 2006, there were 4 billion Minifigs in the world; projecting forward both human and Lego populations suggests that tiny plastic men will outnumber us by 2019. Imagine that: a world where there are more Minifigs than fellow homosapiens. That's our kind of world. [XKCD]

WOW - Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers art project

This is fantastic.

What a wonderful way to visualise the scale of things.

Please click on the link and enjoy.
Click once on each picture and watch as it either zooms in or out.

MathGifs

Here is a very cool site of Maths Gifs for your enjoyment:
mathgifs.blogspot.co.uk

Here is one of the Gifs - Do you see rotation or translation?

Is there a 4th Dimension

After an interesting chat with Dreem in class I thought I would post this great video from the excellent Minute Physics Youtube Channel.

From Triangular Worms to Strandbeesties

Check out these mathematical creatures that live on beaches. We started watching in MYP2 today, but I think students young and old (including teachers and parents) will be amazed.

Don't forget there are many subtitles you can choose from...

The Education of Girls

Mika and Tera Young are raising money to send a girl to school. Sending girls to school changes the world. As well as providing the one girl with an opportunity to learn and access possibilities that could have been out of her reach, she will impact other lives and those lives will impact even more lives.

Prickly Pear Lemonade by Bryan Davidson,
on Flickr licensed under CC by NC & A

Again and again when you look at the education of girls in the world it is one of the key indicators for development.

In MYP2 we are looking at patterns and how to write these mathematically, developing formulae to help make predictions.

If we know the cost of one pink lemonade, how many do we need to sell to make 10,000 Baht?

• What questions do you have?
• How can you set up the maths to help us reach our goal?
• If we don’t sell enough on day one, how many times do we need to run our pink lemonade stand to send a girl to school?

In MYP3 we are looking at the mathematics of chance. We have already asked ourselves how unlikely was it that we were actually born when we think about everything it took to make us. Ask an MYP to explain or me or Ajarn Hugo.

So what decides our future? What things decide our circumstances and opportunities that are out of control and quite random and what choices can we make to change these? Who can help?

In MYP4 we are busy designing a useful space (stay tuned) but they would be excellent people to ask about how to set up the pink lemonade stand to ensure that everyone who wants to support this can get their pink lemonade quickly to help increase sales.

In MYP5 we are looking at data and how they make patterns that we can mathematically model for predictions of all shapes and sizes.  Using www.gapminder.org we can see that the education level of girls and the percentage of girls educated creates patterns that you can’t ignore.

Help Mika and Tera:

• Buy pink lemonade
• Do the mathematics to help them reach their goals
• Use mathematics to help your understanding of why this is so important and how you are very lucky yourselves.
• Check out www.gapminder.org - mathematics can help to make the world a better place. 

Bubble Artist - it's a real job

"The sphere is nature's most efficient shape"

In MYP2 we are asking ourselves "What is nature's shape?". We stopped to look at the sphere from the BBC series called The Code.

Ajarn Hugo shared some very cool stuff that has lots of mathematics to make it so...

please enjoy and click on the link Wave Garden

4 of 4 Surfer Quaid Birchell of Morrow Bay CA by Mike Baird
licensed under CC by A

Teeny and Huge Things - magnitude

When we study teeny tiny things and large things from whales to the universe we use scientific notation and names.

Here are some of the sites we used in MYP5 today:

Scale of the Universe

cells and scale - slidy thing

And some more mathematical treats
xkcd measuring the universe

MYP5, Speed of Light - Good Geekery with Minute Physics. Minute Earth

Today we answered some of our bigger questions that emerged from wondering how long light from Earth takes to get to the moon.  We used this to explore scientific notation, exponents, large numbers and more.

When I have big questions one of my favourite Youtube Geekery Channels is minute physics - hope you like it too.

We wondered if light would travel forever in the universe and if we could see the light (from a torch) on the moon when we turned it on and off.  What can we see from the moon on Earth?

More questions emerged after these videos what is the speed of light in a vacuum (space)? what is the speed of light in water (space)? can animals see more stars than us?

Here are some cool geek videos that answer questions but make you ask even more...




and this for does the torch light beam widen and more

The Number Four - is it your favourite number?

"didn't realise it was going to be so hot" - building melts cars in London

One of my favourite articles of the week - so much mathematics in it. 

Tall Glass Building Melts parked cars  in London in the Guardian, but this next article is just crazy. The architect who designed the car melting buildings in London made the same mistake before, in Las Vegas!

Check out the building making it hot enough to fry eggs in the street.

Is Maths Real?

A couple of students asked me if numbers were real or did we make them up. How about the bigger question that surrounds numbers, Mathematics itself.

Thanks to Ajarn Brian for sharing this video with me so that I can now share it with you.

Who are you (mathematically speaking)?

Your task is to create an infographic about yourself. Before you get started take a look at some examples and ask yourself:

What do I know?

What do I want to know?

Below you will find three examples of infographics created by students. 

Following the student examples are some infographics from the 

In ManageBac is your task and some more links for you to explore.

Student Infographic #1 - what do you know about this person now?

Student Infographic #3 - what do you know about this person now?

Student Infographic #3 - what do you know about this person now?

http://up.wallwisher.net/20130813/4284c23c4da6a983c578fa4391dd1f62.jpeg

http://www.joelertola.com/grfx/index.html

When Sea Levels Attack - from Information is Beautiful

http://sandiegosurfingschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/biggest-waves-1024x576.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/884e2abac0ec848fa6491bf7227ba642/tumblr_mn4gj6Yzeu1s6bw99o1_1280.jpg