Timelines in Math

 One of the workshops I attended gave a list of websites which can easily be used in classes and of course are free.  Teachers love free and are always searching for apps that meet the basic criteria of easy to use, free, and is a great tool.

One of the areas of apps that always appears in these types of presentations are timelines.  Everyone knows timelines are easier to use in certain subjects such as Social Studies, History, or English.  Even Science can find uses for timelines but math is much harder.

I've never thought about using it in math until I realized that we no longer teach students any mathematical history.  When I was in school, teachers took time to discuss the mathematicians who contributed to the development of this topic.  In fact, most of my teachers  hung pictures of mathematicians around the room so we knew the names.  Now, we don't.  My students don't know who Decartes is or any one else who contributed to the field.

I propose, we build in time to explore the history of mathematics the people who contributed to it, or the development of various branches.  Perhaps look at the women who made contribution to the field so girls see that mathematics is not strictly male dominated.

It wouldn't be hard to a create timeline for the life of a mathematician giving information on their birth, death, marriage, schooling, and accomplishments. This type of assignment requires research to find the information needed for the time line.  If its an interactive time line, it could include a map with their place of birth, death, where they lived, etc , a picture of the person,  and any books they published.

Students could create a time line showing the development of Boolean Algebra, Topography, Logic, or other branch of mathematics.  A student could even create a timeline of the development of numbers.

Of course, one could have the class create a timeline of the history of math so each student gets a segment of time and when they are done, they've completed a timeline from  50,000 BC to the present.  The timeline can include mathematicians, their important theorems, etc so the final project is interesting rather than dry with only dates.

Today's timeline software allows people to create products that are more interactive, contain more informations, pictures, maps, rather than just dates and one line descriptions.  If we start adding this into classes, perhaps can show that its been around for a long time and developed to explain the world around us.

I think, I'll be doing this in class when we have a short week and can't do much or during testing when students are tired and need a change.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. Have a great day.