Mike's office hours will be Monday 10:30-11:30 and Wednesday 12:30-1:30

His office is Padelford C-8J (way down in the depths of the C wing)

Project 1 has three units. For those doing the Math Fair, all three units are sessions at Bayley-Gatzert.
A small follow-up requirement: you need to write a short description of what you observed as the Bailey-Gatzert kids got to work on Blokus -- whaqt strategies the used explicitly and what they seemed to be using without thinking about it.      For the rest, a unit is one of two things:
            a) Playing and strategizing about Blokus with one, two or three of your classmates for one and a half hours. The strategizing can either be done by discussing plays as they are made or really digging in at the end and thinking together about which plays seem to have had an impact on the game (either a winning-type impact or the other kind!)
            If you opt for this unit, check with me about borrowing the game.

            b) Going with one or two of your classmates to Leschi School, also for a Blokus session. This would be a session where you work with three or four students (chosen by the teacher – prearrangement needed), explaining to them that you are studying Blokus strategy and you would like either to play a game or two with them or watch them play and maybe discuss with them why they make the choices they do.
            If you opt for such a unit, you need to give me a list of times you could be at Leschi (it is on 32nd and Yesler – about a 15 inute drive from campus, or a half-hour bus ride). I will then confer with the teachers to find a way to accommodate the activity.

      Either of these units must also include two write-ups:
      1) a group log, with entries made during and after the discussion at the end of each game. It should address issues of what plans different people had at the betinning of that game, which of the plans worked well, which seem as if a little tweaking would make them work, and which just plain didn't work – also any unexpected events observed in the course of the game.
      2) an individual report written after you have thought about all three sessions of it. What did you learn about Blokus? What did you learn about your own and your teammates' strategizing? What surprised you? What aided/got in the way of your thinking about the game?



The two deadlines for this are
      1) By February 6, let me know which units you plan and with which partners or teams of classmates.
      2) By February 22 turn in all reports.


Project 2: Read Flatland by E. Abbott and write a one page book report. This will be due February 6.

Project 3 will involve some creative writing inspired by Flatland. A description of that writing is now attached at the left. The project will be due February 22.

Project 4 will be on some of the mathematical aspects of origami. It requires a hard-copy hand-out, which will be given out in class. It will be due on March 6.

for Wednesday, March 8

1) Make your own assigned Bowser (handed out in class 3/1 -- if you were not in class, get your Bowser from Mike)

2) Read Chapter 10, section 2. From the problems at the end, do 1 a-d, 7,16 and 18

for Monday, March 6

Read Chapter 10, section 1. From the probems at the end, do 1,2,5,7.11.13,18,23

for Wednesday, March 1

Read Chapter 9, section 3. From the problems at the end, do #1 - 8.

for Monday, February 27

Read the web page below and look at its linked illustrations. Write a paragraph or so about some things that strike you in the reading.

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Escher.html


for Wednesday, February 22

Exploration 9.10 PARTS 6, 7, and 8.

Note for PART 7: the van Hiele levels mentioned are on page 509 – 511 of the textbook. This would be a good time to re-read them and think a bit about all you have been doing and learning.

Notes for PART 8:
1)The first line reads "Take out page 301." It should be page 307. You do not need to cut it out, and you may omit the patterns from PART 3.
2) There is a third section of PART 8, after the quilt stories.

for Wednesday, February 15

Optional: Read the rest of §9.2 in the textbook (that's the green one)

Required: Do Exploration 9.9 in the Exploration book (that's the pink one), PART 1 and PART 5. Each of those has numerous sub-parts, which you should do. The fifth and last subpart of PART 5 requests you to make some tessellations. For that one you must turn in at least two tessellations, one based on a quadrilateral and one on a triangle.

for Monday, February 13

Use the polygon templates handed out in class to determine which of the vertices listed to the left as a possibility for constructing a semi-regular tessellation actually produces one.

for Wednesday, February 8

Just finish reading Flatland and do the report.


for Monday, February 6 (reconstructed from shaky memory)

Do mirror worksheet handed out in class.

Read 9.2 up to page 603 (I think)

Do Problems 2,4,6,9,10.


for Wednesday, February 1

Do Exploration 9.5 Parts 1 and 3


for Monday, January 30
First do PARTS 3 and 4 of Exploration 8.17, with the following amendments:
      for subpart 2 of PART 3, use real (sugar cube) buildings, not book pictures
      for subpart 1 of PART 4, after you build each building write out briefly what was easy or hard, interesting of boring about it.

Then read the rest of §8.3. You'll find that many of the suggested Investigations are things we have already done. Take a little time to think about them anyway, because what you have read might well cast a new light on the situation.

In the Chapter 8 Review Exercises on pp. 566-568, do #9, 12, 21, 27, 29, 30


for Wednesday, January 25


Cross section challenge Find a cross section of a tetrahedron that is a square (i.e., find a place at which you could slice a tetrahedron in such a way that the cut faces are square.)

In the pink book, do Exploration 8.19, Part 1, subparts 1 and 2. You will start Wednesday by discussing with your group what generalizations you came up with for subpart 2, so have them in discussable form.

In the green book, read (slowly and very actively!) §8.3 up to the bottom of page 553.

Do problems #2 - #5 at the end of the section.

for Monday, January 23

In the textbook, exercises 8.2, #5 and #15

Also do Exploration 8.7 Part 1 #2

and Exploration 8.6 Part 3
Note that for this one you need a pair of hinged mirrors. Mike has the ones that were leftover after class -- if you need one, e-mail him.


for Wednesday, January 18

Prepare to discuss Exploration 8.4, Part 2. Work on cutting out all the figures and on figuring how to communicate your process a) to your group and b) to someone who will only be able to read what you write, not see your hands waving.

Do Exploration 8.5 and turn it in.

Read Chapter 8, section 2 [actively, but you needn't turn in your notes].

Do problems 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 14. If part of a problem has a solution in the back of the book, study the book's solution, but do not turn it in. [Note: problems whose solutions are at least partially printed at the back of the book are numbered in blue instead of black.]


for Wednesday, January 11

Finish reading section 1 of chapter 8, and then from the exercises at the end of the section to turn in 2,3f, 4, 5, 8 (use different examples from the ones in the book's answer section) 11 a-e and 18


For Monday, January 9:

Along with your Follow-up Report for today's class, please send us a brief note on two subjects:
1) Who are you? I'd like to know a little of your mathematical background (especially as regards geometry), plus anything you'd like to tell me about who you are. If I were writing, for instance, I would probably tell you about my three kids (grown, but I talk about them anyway) and my Mediaeval Women's Choir — but I wouldn't feel obliged to mention either if I weren't up for it.
2) Why are you taking this course? What are you hoping to get out of it? It will help me a great deal to know as much as I can of your expectations and aspirations.
Also: In the big, green Bassarear text, first read pages xv - xx of the Preface. Then for Chapter 8, the first part of section 1 (pp. 485 –495) do active reading. The Bassarear textbook is set up with a specific model in mind of how you should read it. Every few paragraphs there is a little pencil and notepad symbol, and when you get to one of them you are supposed to write something on a scratch pad before you go on. This is an admirable format, but one that it can be difficult to persuade oneself to follow through on. So your assignment is to read this section and to write out thoughts or comments or partial solutions or guesses—whatever he calls for—at each of the marked spots. Then turn in what you wrote. You will NOT be graded on whether you wrote the "right" thing (there generally isn't one) but on whether you wrote something indicating you were putting some thought into the relevant issue.