HIstory in Math and Books

  The first week of school is one of the hardest because students are changing schedules, figuring out they have to be up earlier than during the summer, or returning from their summer trips.

Our high school allows one week for students to make any changes to their schedules.  It is also the week where students who are transferring to boarding schools disappear from the rolls. 

Some of my students know school has started but are still on their summer sleep schedule.

This is the perfect time to sneak a history project into class before starting the real work.  I would have done it but my iPads are not available yet.  It might be another two or three weeks before I get them but I'm going to keep this in mind for next year. The idea is to create either an ebook or a slide presentation as a class.

Yesterday, I provided a brief history of numbers but you could use famous mathematicians, culturally based math systems, mathematical tools, measuring systems or any topic you desire.  The first two days could be used to have students research topics individually or in small groups.  They need to research detailed information.  I might assign the a student to find out more information on the bone, another to research the Sumerian system for commerce.  In other words, break the topics down so students know what to look for.

This is a great time to remind students about plagiarism, copyrights on pictures, etc to remind them they have to follow the rules any time even outside of the English classroom.  I've been working with my students to provide a URL for where they got the information.

Once everyone has had a chance to research their topic, they need to put together the information. There are three ways to do this.  The class can create a book using iBook Author, Book Creator, or Google slides.

Each chapter can cover one topic or more than one topic depending on how you want it divided.  I might have the three Greek mathematicians in one chapter while Fibonacci might be another chapter if the book is on the history of numbers but I'd have them do individual chapters if I was making a book on mathematicians.

Its all up to you.  Let me know what you think.  Have a great day.