Describes an investigation of polygons and their properties in which students apply very basic understandings of geometric properties. (KHR)

Describes the process of mathematical modeling, an extensive teacher's guide, and a student modeling activity to improve the efficiency of soft-drink packaging. (KHR)

Presents a lesson involving the measurement of wood beams and the prediction and testing of their stress limits. Provides an example of a problem with multiple solutions, each with different consequences. (KHR)

Presents a lesson designed to give teachers the know-how to offer secondary school students opportunities to model real-world phenomena through a variety of functions and construct and draw inferences from tables and graphs summarizing data from these situations. Investigates the roller-coaster questions in a graduate class on methods of teaching…

Addresses the observed actions of prospective Swedish mathematics teachers as they worked with a modeling situation. Explores prospective teachers' preparation to teach in grades 4-12 during a course of mathematical modeling. Focuses on preservice teachers' understanding of modeling and how they relate mathematical models to the real world.…

Reports on a study that focused on three teachers and their ways of teaching problem solving. Findings indicate that the participants unconsciously constructed personal metaphors that became the basis of their conceptualization of problems. "Community", "adventure" and "game" were the key metaphors. The outcome…

Uses the book entitled "Biggest, Strongest, Fastest" by Steve Jenkins to provide animal facts of interest to students, which in turn become the basis for other applications of mathematics. By using themselves as a unit of measure, students have a real-world connection to the problem. This method also helps to demonstrate that even…

This activity for grades three through six determines how to identify the gross tonnage of a ship by measuring volume in cubic feet. During the problem-solving process, students construct and use a tool for measuring volume, derive a formula based on data collected, and compare their data with a given set of statistics. (AIM)

Presents some activities for both art and mathematics classrooms. Traces the history of geometric art and focuses on a way of drawing tiling using LOGO programming. Describes some of the work on tessellations by the mathematician Roger Penrose and the artist M.C. Escher. Provides websites for further information. (KHR)

Discusses an approach to learning that uses well-selected problems to capture student interest and challenge their intellect. Presents an example of the problem-centered approach and discusses ways in which it helps all students learn important mathematical concepts and skills. (KHR)

Describes the history of the unsolved moving sofa problem, presents one possible solution, and gives several suggestions for how this problem can be used in the classroom. (Author/NB)

Presented are problems that teachers can use to stimulate students' thinking about the subject of mathematical scaling. Food and eating examples are used to illustrate this concept. (CW)

Strategies for teaching general mathematics effectively are discussed. Stressed are the use of calculators for arithmetic, individualized instruction, and teaching mathematics in context. Applications to vocational education are described. (CW)

This article develops an algorithm to find all solutions to the problem, making all sums of a hexagram's nine lines the same. It shows how to exploit the geometric structure of the hexagram and its group of automorphisms. (YP)

Presents examples of 3-by-3 and 4-by-4 magic squares. Proves that the numbers 1 to 10 can not be fitted to the intersections of a pentagram and that the sum of the 4 numbers on each line is always 22. (YP)