Math 123

Notice: The new headquarters for Math 123 is at our new site, so go check it out.

During Fall, 2005, this page will serve as a repository for various Access Science and Math 123 related projects and resources. Sarah Mason's Math 123 page is a good place to check for further resources and information. Please feel free to email me at shonkwil@math.upenn.edu with questions or suggestions.

Syllabus (Source)

Labs

All labs are in PDF format. Index links lead to a complete list of associated files (embedded images, TeX source files, special graph papers, etc.).
  • Sketchpad (index) — A basic introduction to the different tools and menu options in Geometer's Sketchpad, which will be used often throughout the course.
  • Intuitive Theorems (index) — An intuitive approach to some basic theorems about parallel lines and angles, using Geometer's Sketchpad.
  • Pool (index) — Using geometry to help sink difficult pool shots. This lab both introduces some important concepts and serves as a good introduction to using Geometer's Sketchpad to actually solve problems.
  • Triangle Centers (index) — An investigation of the various centers of a triangle, how to find them, and how they might be useful.
  • Geometry Taboo (index) — A game, based on Taboo, that serves to build mathematical vocabulary and confidence.
  • Pick's Theorem (index) — An activity intended to illustrate Pick's Theorem and help students come up with the basic formula for themselves.
  • Koch Snowflake (index) — An investigation of the relationship between perimeter and area. In this lab, we will construct the first few iterations of the Koch snowflake, a shape with finite area but infinite perimeter.
  • Digital Camera (index) — An investigation of the ideas of scaling, area and perimeter in the context of digital cameras.

Sequencing

Sarah Mason's Math 123 labs sequenced to the new 10th grade geometry curriculum: ODS format, Excel format.

Math Tree

One of the projects we've been working on, which we hope will be useful for both professional development and the high school classes we're working with is a graphical illustration of how advanced mathematical knowledge is based on more elementary subjects, how the various realms of mathematics are related and how many of the most advanced topics have interesting applications. Here's what we've come up with so far:

The background in the last three pictures derives from a photograph taken by shawnson and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license. The naked tree is free for you to do with as you please.

Medical Intake

To help with Access Science's Medical Intake program at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, the Access Science math squad has produced a few lesson plans to supplement the work done by the Medical Intake fellows:

  • Basic Statistics (index, images only) — A basic introduction to arithmetic mean, median, mode and normal and exponential distributions, with lots of examples from sports, economics, health and social policy. Something of a proto-lesson plan (or four different but related lesson plans).
  • Rates and Averages (Word doc; also available as ODT and PDF. References this Excel spreadsheet [ODS]) — A more focused lesson plan intended to reacquaint students with arithmetic mean, median and mode, as well as introducing and working with the notion of rates. The examples are much more health- and medical-specific than the Basic Stats lesson plan(s), even though there is considerable overlap between them.
  • Sampling (high resolution) — An activity to introduce and reinforce the notion that taking truly random samples is extremely important. Currently just an image; more will be added soon.