OK, I’ve tweeted about it. Several times. @IngridRistoph is probably tired of her twitter notifications buzzing, but she tweeted it out last night, and I retweeted it about a hundred time. So huge hat-tip to her.
(Update: Ingrid went ahead and started a blog, after being inspired from her discovery. Google Reader bookmarks at the ready!: http://questionsofquantity.wordpress.com/)
Artifact: Website: http://www.firefightermath.org
There’s pretty much something for everyone: vectors, slope, volume, potential #anyqs, thermodynamics, area and perimeter, you name it.
Ironically, you know what was missing? The firefighter-ladder-pythagorean theorem problem:
Now, is the information presented in an interesting way? Not always (sometimes, but not always). But at the risk of going totally off-the-rails in what was supposed to be just a linkshare, that’s the new challenge of teachers, particularly math teachers. It’s not to deliver content: it’s to find content and make it interesting. I’ve found it’s sometimes difficult for math teachers (self-included) to use the creative portion of the brain to teach mathematics. We pretty much stay with the logical half (that’s the left side, right?).
This website has awesome content and awesome relevance. So our task is not to deliver the content, it’s this: How can we present the narrative of firefighting and mathematics to our students to make it engaging?
(Update: Here’s a start.
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emergent math 