Category: algebra
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U-haul Linear Systems problem (updated and improved)
A couple weeks ago I posted this problem. I like the problem, but I wasn’t a huge fan of its solution and frankly, it sort of got away from me. Thankfully, my colleagues are more adept than I am at developing clear problems. So here’s the updated, improved version. =============================================== Moving On Up Artifact / Entry Event…
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Do NFL teams actually use that draft pick chart when trading draft picks?
The 2011 National Football League draft of players is tomorrow, and I was inspired by a really interesting post over on Mr. Honner’s blog regarding the NFL Draft Pick Trade Value chart and exponential decay. The gist is this: somewhere, sometime, someone came up with a chart that assigned a numerical value to every pick…
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Can someone help me improve this problem? (U-Haul rental rates ; systems of linear functions)
So the Emergent Math family moved houses this weekend (editor’s note: they didn’t actually move the houses, they moved the furniture inside the houses). We were given basically three different options for U-Haul rentals of increasing size and increasing price. This led me to believe that a nice systems problem could be constructed from this. I…
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A stop-sign vs. a stoplight; when does each make sense? (Part 2, Math modeling)
I know it’s been a while since we visited this, but quick recap: We want to figure out when it is appropriate to have a stop-sign at an intersection versus a stoplight. In Part 1, we made some assumptions about stop-sign wait time modeling and developed an equation that gave us the total wait time…
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Let’s graph this and/or make it better; What constitutes a “blown game?”
A few minutes ago the other day, NPR’s Mike Pesca tweeted his mathematical rule as to what constitutes a “blown game” in basketball. That means if at any time a team is winning by (# of minutes left in the game)+4, and loses, that’s a “blown game.” There are 48 minutes in a NBA game…
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A stop-sign vs. a stoplight ; when does each make sense? (Part 1, Math Modeling)
Artifact Can we use math modeling and/or equations to answer the question of when it becomes advantageous to install a stoplight vs. a stop-sign? Can we “ambush” students by having them create equations without really knowing it? What are some of the things we need to know about this? Guiding Questions How long does a…
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A 90-yard punt ; Quadratics
So upon my call last week for quadratic activities, I got a ton of resources in my inbox. I’ll post them soon after I’ve had a chance to look through them. Until then, here’s something I cooked up that could go several different directions, depending on your students’ needs. Artifact This terribly grainy video of…
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The Wacky Algebra of NFL Passer Rating
Artifact The following formula calculates NFL Passer rating. (wiki) (note: each component has a predetermined MAX and MIN value that appeared to be pulled out of thin air.) Personally, I would simply present this equation to students at the beginning of class and let them stare at it a while and try to figure some…
emergent math 