Personal Growth / Mind /
Science/Math
Math
Many people find math and its endless drills and practice to be infinitely boring. These days, though, when things get boring, there's a new option: Go surfing. There are several World-Wide Web sites, some of which are extremely useful, to help both kids and adults with math. They explain mathematics problems and concepts and, yes, provide even more opportunities for drills and practice.
The Best
The welcome page of MegaMath reminds us that "mathematics is lively and exciting." This site succeeds at its goal of making math come alive for kids.
MegaMath starts with a beautiful graphical menu from which you jump to problems with names like Welcome to the Infinity Hotel and Algorithms and Ice Cream for All. The latter selection is typical. It begins with a clear explanation of purpose: To figure out how to place ice cream stands throughout a city so that nobody need travel far for cold treats. MegaMath also reminds us of the real-world use of its story problems. Algorithms and Ice Cream for All, for example, represents the type of math done in facilities planning. Students and teachers begin each problem by reading about the key concepts and vocabulary related to the problem. Another link leads to the problem description itself. The descriptions are lengthy, witty, and interesting to read. There also are aids for teachers and parents. At the end of each page, there are icons for moving to the next part of the lesson.
The creators of this site claim that good math comes from good stories. These stories and the related lessons are, indeed, quite good. Also, MegaMath's well-designed graphical menus make it the most eye-pleasing of the math sites. All told, this wonderful site will not only encourage kids to practice math, but to become interested in it.
Ask Dr. Math is a simple site: Kids submit questions to a mathematician and receive answers. But the quantity of archived questions and the high quality of the answers make Ask Dr. Math an excellent resource. Dr. Math is actually a group of students at Swarthmore College, most of whom have a knack for answering questions completely and clearly, providing specific answers, explaining concepts, and sometimes assigning additional problems to give students more work in their problem area. The archived questions and answers are grouped by age, ranging from elementary to college. You also can search the archives for specific terms. This excellent site is worth a visit whether you or your child have a math problem or are looking for explanations of key concepts.
The Rest
The Introduction to 21st Century Problem Solving provides a series of story problems and a method of solving problems. This site walks kids through a specific problem-solving method. There are relatively few problems at this site, but the level of detail provided by each will keep kids busy for hours. The solutions are diagrammed, which makes them reasonably easy to follow. However, some of the text explanations aren't clear, and the site doesn't break the problems down into age categories (though the problem-solving method described by the site is recommended for students in the earlier grades). Overall, this is a good site that seems to be appropriate for advanced junior high students and higher. However, the lack of clarity about age-appropriateness and the sometimes muddy explanations make it a bit more troublesome than it should be.
Big Sky Mathematics Lesson Plans is a gopher site with a collection of more than 40 mathematics lesson plans for kids of all ages. These plans are for teachers, but they will be useful to parents who want to tutor their kids in math. Many of the lessons are interesting and imaginative, such as one in which the students bake M&M cookies to help younger kids count and learn other basic math concepts.
MathMagic is another teacher-oriented site worth visiting from home. Although this is a Web page, the MathMagic process primarily uses mailing lists. It works like this: The MathMagic mailing list sends math challenges in four grade categories (K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12) to registered participants, who then solve the problems cooperatively via the mailing list. The problems are also posted on the Web site so non-participants can see the challenges.
What's yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? Why, Zorn's Lemon, of course! If you get a chuckle out of this, you'll be right at home at Fun Math and its collection of math jokes. Obviously, these jokes appeal to serious mathematicians, but the rest of us can appreciate the collection of fractal images and the extensive links to math and logic puzzles.
by David Haskin


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Internet Life Vol.1 No.1 Winter 1995