Curious and Useful Math (Gr. K-12 ): Network Nuggets


	[[[[ * Curious and Useful Math * ]]]]] His interest in math 'stuff' stimulated by his grandfather, Clay Ford created a web page full of interesting mathematical curiosities. Some of these will be familiar to many of us pre-calculator types, for example some of the quick calculation rules that we were taught by teachers or parents. Others are less practical but still are intriguing to consider and look at - finger math, word roots, Bible numbers are just a few. Most of the contents are not going to be useful to your students on a regular basis, but they serve as a great way to stimulate interest. For example, introduce your students to the section titled "Scroll Down Slowly". Have each of them complete it on on his/her own and then compare their starting numbers and ending answers. I suspect that almost all of your students with have the same answer no matter what number they started with. The fun part, for the teacher, is explaining why. The next bit of fun then is to challenge your students to create their own mystery so that they can try it on their younger siblings - with suitable warnings against taking bets from them of course. Curious and Useful Math is hosted by Clay Ford and is suitable for math students in grades K-12. It is located at http://personal.cfw.com/~clayford/home.html ############################################### Permission is granted to redistribute the above message provided that credit is given to the Network Nugget List and no fees are charged. Network Nuggets is a free service of the Community Learning Network (http://www.cln.org/) and Open School (http://www.openschool.bc.ca/). We send these announcements to subscribers on CLN's Network Nuggets to inform them about potentially useful educational resources on the Internet -- but we are not guaranteeing that these resources will be valuable and without frustrations. Visit the Nugget Home Page (http://www.cln.org/lists/nuggets/nug_index.html) to browse through our archives or for information on how to subscribe/unsubscribe. David Wighton, Moderator of Network Nuggets (mailto:Nuggets@cln.etc.bc.ca)