Australian Curriculum Presentation

[slideshare id=7454054&doc=australiancurriculumpresentation31march2011-110330174857-phpapp02]

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Using Google Earth in Mathematics Teaching

Google earth has many wonderful applications in the Mathematics Classroom. Here are some of the better applications. Please feel free to continue the list in the comments section below. I would like to credit Douglas Butler (www.tsm-resources.com) with some of the ideas below. www.googlecompass.com is also an excellent website for taking straight and angular measurements.

 

Bearings

Runway numbers are chosen based on the magnetic heading of the runway. In areas where the compass indication are unreliable the true north heading is, denoted by a T prefix. Example: Sydney Airport NS Runway is on a bearing of

 

Plane Geometry

The Pentagon (US) – Is it a regular pentagon?	"Exmouth Cape Tourist Village" – (look slightly to the north)

 

2D Measurement – To easily find the perimeter and area, you can use a Google Earth Add-on called GEPath. This can be used to check calculations.

Find the perimeter and area of your school. How big is your school oval? Most likely, it will be close to 1 Ha.

Have students create a field diagram (by taking measurements) to work out the area of the school, or their home.	Find the area of the sector below, by taking appropriate measurements. (This is at the Athletic Centre at Sydney Olympic Park).

 

3D Measurement

Find the Great Pyramid at Giza – by taking appropriate measurements, what is the surface area and volume? (Its height is approximately 139 m). You can also show 3D Buildings to get a good look.

 

Parabolas

To the east of Lydd Airport, KENT, United Kingdom. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_mirror for information on these fantastic structures!

 

Real World Math.org

More Resources can be found at www.realworldmath.org. I particularly like their complex area problem at http://realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/Complex_Area_Problems.html. There are worksheets and KMZ (Google Earth Files) to download for many concepts.

 

 

 

 

 

AIS Term 1 Professional Development

Here is our work from the wiki:

Term 1 PD - Exploring the Australian Curriculum in Mathematics

iPad Apps for Mathematics

The Victorian education department has commenced a trial of iPads in the classroom. As part of this, they have created a list of recommended iPad apps for Mathematics. http://www.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/education-apps/5-mathematics.

There has been much argument that iPads are not useful in education and that their only benefit if to replace a stack of books, but that this is not a worthy goal. If the only thing that they did was replace all textbooks with PDF versions in iBooks, I think this would be a fantastic outcome for children's backs (given the weight of their schoolbags).

Apple is currently pursuing the education market with their iPads and have made reference to it at their recent iPad 2 launch.

Implications for Teaching

Unless the whole class is using iPads, it can be difficult to see their application. However, Students can be recommended to use specific apps at home on their iPad (if they own one). Alternatively, apps like WolframAlpha are also available on the internet.