| |
|
Multiple Strands
|
|
Enlarge |
Mathematicians Are People, Too: Stories from the Lives of Great Mathematicians
Author: Luetta Reimer and Wilbert Reimer
Illustrator: Rachel Gage
Publisher: Dale Seymour Publications
Copyright: 1990
ISBN: 0-86651-509-7
Number of Pages: 154
Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12
This book is a collection of 15 stories that can be read aloud in the classroom to give students insight into the lives of mathematicians. The goal of the book is to show students how mathematicians observe patterns and test their observations and that we use these methods today. Each story shows the particular mathematician as a person first, then a mathematician, thus making the mathematicians more real to the students. Each story gives a brief history of the mathematician and provides students with background into specific mathematical concepts. This book contains stories of Thales, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Hypatia, Napier, Galileo, Pascal, Newton, Euler, Lagrange, Germain, Gauss, Galois, Noether, and Ramanujan.
Go to:
How to Use This Book
Highlights and Insights
Related ORC Resources
Ohio Standards
|
|
How to Use This Book
|
- Prior to teaching Euler's formula for the relationshop between faces, vertices, and edges, the chapter on Euler could be read to give students some background on this remarkable mathematician.
- While teaching the Pythagorean Theorem, students may enjoy the story of Pythagoras to help them understand a little more about the person who developed what is probably the most famous theorem ever about triangles.
- The chapters on Hypatia, Sophie Germain, and Emmy Noether can be used to demonstrate that "girls can too do math!"
- Any of these stories could be used to encourage any student. Things were not always easy for these mathematicians. Likewise, things are not always easy for our students.
|
|
Highlights and Insights
|
- The personal histories of the mathematicians provide background for the students and make the mathematics the students are learning come alive.
- The mathematics described in these stories is the mathematics that middle grades and high school students will deal with. Because the mathematics is familiar, students will identify more personally with the people who developed these ideas.
- Students will also understand the mathematical ideas better, knowing how the ideas were first discovered. The mathematics is now more than symbols on a page in their mathematics text.
|
|
Related ORC Resources
|
Geometric Solids and Their Properties Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Best Practice Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 3–10 Professional Commentary: In this interactive geometry investigation, students explore geometric solids and their properties. There are five parts to the investigation that include the rotation of shapes on the computer screen as well as plans for straw "construction" of solids and patterns for "nets." The site includes a "Thoughts for Teachers" section and downloadable student materials.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Construction Technologies, Manufacturing Technologies Projects: COR, Standards First Resource Type: Rich Problem, Inquiry, or Exploration Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 8–12 Professional Commentary: Students construct Pascal's triangle and find a variety of patterns connected with it. Extensions of the problem and a complete discussion of the underlying mathematical ideas are included.... Resource Type: Rich Problem, Inquiry, or Exploration Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 5–10 Professional Commentary: This activity shows how cutting geometric shapes and rearranging the pieces leads to some standard area formulas and to the Pythagorean Theorem. Complete proofs are included.... Area and Volume in 3D -- Can't Have One Without the Other! Resource Type: Rich Problem, Inquiry, or Exploration Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 5–8 Professional Commentary: Every three-dimensional solid has both a volume and a surface area. Students explore the relationships between volume and surface area by constructing different solids from a given number of cubes.... Resource Type: Content Resource Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 7–10 Professional Commentary: Reviewers found a mismatch between the exploratory nature of the Pythagorean Explorer applet and the didactic procedures suggested in the lesson. Most teachers will prefer to use the applet with a more guided discovery approach.... Career Fields: Construction Technologies, Engineering & Science Technologies Projects: Standards First Resource Type: Content Resource Discipline: Mathematics Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 10–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: Through text and diagrams, this tutorial reviews logarithms from several perspectives. Beginning with a short history of logarithms, the discussion covers rules of logarithms, graphs of logarithmic functions (including transformations of those functions), logarithmic equations, and applications of both exponential and logarithmic functions.... |
|
Ohio Standards
|
Number, Number Sense and Operations Standard
Measurement Standard
Geometry and Spatial Sense Standard
Patterns, Functions and Algebra Standard
Data Analysis and Probability Standard
|
|
|