April is Math Awareness Month

April is also Math Awareness Month. The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics announce that the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month, April 2013, is the Mathematics of Sustainability. And, as I learned from my college math tutors, when math experts speak, grab a pocket protector and listen!

Mathematics of Sustainability emphasizes the interconnected nature of resources. The Math Awareness Month website has interconnected project ideas to implement in your classroom.

Click on the poster display link and the picture of cities. Read online article (or hardcopy printout) and notate important facts, especially numeric facts. Discuss the essential question: “How do we mange the change from fossil fuels to renewable energies fairly?”

Click on the poster display link and the picture of the wind farms. Read the online article on cities and notate important facts, especially numeric facts. Discuss the essential question: “How will we balance the needs of cities for food, for energy  and other resources, against the needs of the environment and against the needs of non-urban residents who work to meet these needs?

Numberphile is a collection of videos dedicated to math, numbers and other related areas.  Teachers can use these to brush up on topics or post to their class website as a “flipped” learning opportunity.  There are explanations of laws, theorems, and applications. Here is a Numberphile video on Pi:

Numberphile also show how math is used in the real world. View the Numberphile video on probability of sharing birthdays on a team, called the birthday paradox. Notate important facts, especially numeric facts and language differences (the videos are produced in Britain)

Happy Math Awareness Month!