Trick 6: Freaky Math Medium

Write the word carrot inside your math text book. Do not show students.

When Mathspig was a mathspiglet we used to play this trick. It doesn’t work on everyone, but it works  often enough.

Ask a student to say 15 times 15 fifteen times.

Then ask them to name a vegetable. Students say carrot 90% (I’m guessing) of the time.

To make this trick more dramatic send 10 students out of the class before you begin and tell the other half what you are about to do. Students return one at a time. How often do they say ‘carrot’? What % of students say carrot? 

And the Oscar for Best Mathematical Performance Goes to …..

  ………………………………………..

And the Oscar for Best Mathematical Performance Goes to …..

Ben Zauzmer

Ben Zauzmer, a Harvard Applied Math graduate who has a 75 per cent success rate in predicting the winners of Oscar Awards every year, has correctly predicted 20 of 21 winners in 2018 Oscars, which is a success rate of 95%. 

How does he do it? He gathers thousands of data points on Oscar ceremonies over the past two decades – such as categories movies are nominated in, other award results, and aggregate critic scores – and he uses statistics to calculate how good a predictor each of those metrics is in each Oscar category. Then, he plugs in the numbers and that gives him the % chance that each film will win in each category according to  the Boston Globe.

Ben, who writes for The Hollywood Reporter, uses his mathematical model to produce  Bar Graphs like this:

This year the Best Picture was a close call, but Ben’s Mathematical Prediciton was correct.  

6. You’re either Good at Maths or You’re Not

The Complaint:  

You’re either Good at Maths or You’re Not!………………

………………………………………………………………………….

The Cause:

Most students who said “I can’t do maths’ when I was teaching, didn’t do maths. They talked, penned a tattoo on their arm. Or scribbled in the text book. Today they read texts or play games on their phones under table or fall asleep.

………………………………………………………………………….

The Solution: 

There is no point arguing. Students must ‘see’ they can do maths.  

Do something that grabs their attention, something counterintuitive. Here is one of the BEST revision projects ever for middle school maths students. Remember, the best way to learn something is to teach it.

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Project MATHS SLAM WORKSHEET plain txt PDF

Project MATHS SLAM WORKSHEET plain txt USA PDF

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Project Maths Slam

Project Maths Slam USA TERMS

8. When will I EVER use this maths?

The Complaint: I’ll Never Use This Maths!………………

………………………………………………………………………….

The Cause:

Text book exercises that are good for skill building, but appear irrelevant to the real world.

………………………………………………………………………….

The Solution:

You are going to use this maths NOW

………………………………………………………………………….

8a. Calculate Your Daily Iron Intake

8b. How much blood can YOU lose and survive?  

…METRIC………………………………………………………………..

……USA Units………………………………………………………..

8c. What Volume of Alcohol is Lethal?

 

 

8a. Calculate Your Daily Iron Intake

The Complaint

8a: When will I EVER use this maths?

The Cause:

Students doing repetitive text book exercises without using maths to solve REAL WORLD problems.

The Solution:

You are going to use this maths NOW.

Calculate Your Daily Iron Intake

TOPICS: Decimals, %, weight units (METRIC) 

Some information you need. 

Iron (Chemical symbol:Fe) content in food is recorded in mg because there are only small amounts of iron in food.

1 g = 1000 mg

eg. 1 paper clip = 0.5 g = 500 mg

     Iron in 2 teaspoon peanut butter = 0.19 mg

Full Page Worksheet PDF:Daily Iron Intake Calculation Work Sheet

WORKED EXAMPLE: Breakfast

More info here

 

YouTube Clip Money Making Maths

………………..How much money does a popular

………………………YOUTUBE clip make?

You will learn everything you need to know at 1 Million YouTube Views.  Now let’s do the maths!

Here are the TOP 3 YouTube Clips Ever. Their popularity is measured by Number of Views. 

1. PSY – GANGNAM STYLE

2,879,287,942 views

View here.

2. Taylor Swift – Blank Space

2,088,564,435 views

View here.

3. Wiz Khalifa – See You Again. Charlie Puth (Furious 7)

2,850,776,581 views

View here.

YouTube uses an algorithm (ie. a formula) for calculating the amount of income earnt by a clip from advertising. There are multiple issues involved including how long viewers watch the ad, the demographics (age group) and the actual sales (Retailers actually do review ad costs vs increased sales. Always. They are not idiots.)

Here is  the basic method used to calculate ad revenue for a Youtube creator. Remember, a creator must have a minimum of 10,000 hits on their channel before any revenue is paid.

Of course, pop stars use Youtube as a promotion platform. They can earn money through multiple Youtube clips, sponsors, merchandise and live perfomances. Nevertheless, it is surprising how little money is earned by each clip.

eg. ONE DIRECTION

521,126,151 views

View here.

How Oops! Try again Maths is killing us …………………………………………………………………………… MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig MathsPig ….…. with Kerry Cue

The New Age of Guess-amatics!

Hellooooo Sweeties,………………………………………………………………………

Some frightening maths this week. When researching DANGEROUS MATHS, Mathspig found one branch of maths is the most dangerous maths of all. Let’s call it GUESS-AMATICS. Today, maths is often taught via computer program packages. Some of these computer packages turn maths into a guessing game.

This exact and rather frightening scenario was described to me by the mother of a 5 year old. The mother decided it was time to turn the game off. When students play mathematical computer games too often they don’t have to think, they just guess the answer and try again. But be warned this ‘Oops! Try again’ maths can kill you’! Some maths you cannot ‘try again’. You HAVE to get it right the first time. Medication is one area where ‘Oops! Try again maths kills”

Do the Maths and Do NO HARM.

You need sufficient maths to understand medication doses or you might do yourself harm.…………………………………………………………………………………..

And here is just one very frightening statistic:……………………………………..

According to FDA data 1.3 million people in the USA are injured each year from medication errors.

Meanwhile, we need nurses, caregivers, doctors, paramedics, First Aide volunteers, parents, grandparents, babysitters, teachers and all health care professionals to have sufficient maths to be able to calculate simple medication doses. Or we need them to simply READ the dose and make sure it is correct. Unfortunately, many of those who should be able to work out medication doses are either incapable or not paying attention. And your life could be in their hands:

UK

In the UK 1 in 20 hospital deaths is due to medical error. Nearly 12,000 patients die needlessly in hospital every year due to blunders by staff, researchers warn. Drugs or fluid mismanagement  was identified as a problem in 21% of preventable deaths (NHS   2012) or, doing the maths, 21% of 12,000 is approx 2,500 deaths due to bad maths!

USA

According to a new study just out from the prestigious Journal of Patient Safety, four times as many people die from preventable medical errors than we thought, as many as 440,000 a year.

Canada

Reports show between 9,000 and 24,000 hospital deaths due to medical error.

Australia

Official Australian government reports reveal that preventable medical error in hospitals is responsible for 11% of all deaths in Australia or 1 in 9 deaths.

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Other DANGEROUS MATHS include:

Dangerous Maths 1:Young drunk dead

Dangerous Maths 2: Death by Snake, Spider, Quad bike, Kangaroo, Raccoon and Vomit

Dangerous Maths 3: Shark Attack

Take care and do the maths……………………………………………………

Hoo Roo………………………………………………………………………………

Mathspig