3. How far can a bio-fuel Mini drive on 1 kg of human fat?

Of course, in heavy traffic you are burning up the bio-fuel/fat getting nowhere.

Fuel Consumption (F) can plummet, even for the Mini, from 3.4 kg/ 100 km to 6.8 kg/100 km to 8.8 kg/100km. You may as well get out of the car and walk!!

ENERGY:

In Biodiesel

Consumed walking

In FAT including Human Fat

Outdoor Maths Adventures: Grade 3 – 5

This fab idea comes from Juliet Robertson, an outdoor education consultant in Scotland. Her blog Creative star learning is one of the most inspiring outdoor maths blogs you will find.

Check out Mathpig’s protractor joke here.

Another fab idea from Juliet Robertson.

 

Outdoor Maths Adventures: Middle School

 

 

Lego Man soccer fields will vary in size depending on the height of each player picked by each student. This does your head in. It is really challenging maths!

 

McGill Uni link here.

Don’t forget to throw in Mathspig’s lame protractor jokes.

You’ll find full calculations at the Maths is Fun blog.

You’ll find more fab outdoor junior and middle school maths activities at the terrific Maths and Movement blog.

Some students will discover their co-ordinate point is not on the grid. Students should then work out that they will need a different scale for the y-axis. You can get more inspiration at the Stand Again blog.

Get Ready for the Lego Olympics

Get ready mathspigs. You need one Lego Man, Girl, Vampire or Alien each for this exercise. Now we are going to set out the Lego Olympics Athletics track.

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But this story of the Olympics begins with Carl Lewis, one of the greatest athletes of all time who won 9 Olympic Gold medals in 100m, 200m, relay and long jump.

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Carl Lewis

Mathspig needs to find out how big the Lego Olympics track would be. How? Easy.

Carl Lewis will be our standard Lego Man.

I chose Carl Lewis because he kindly gave me his autograph once when I sprinted in high heels across a ballroom floor at a sports dinner in Melbourne and beat all other journalists.  It was my personal best in high heels, I think.

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This means everything at the Lego Olympics  will be

1:50

of the real Olympics.

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The  Lego Bird’s Nest Stadium @ Beijing will be 1/50th of the real Bird’s Nest Stadium. (Not the scale shown here). Pictures by Johor Bahru.

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The Lego Beijing Water Cube Swim Centre will be 1/50th of the Real Water Cube.

EXERCISE 1:

Now mathspiggies over to you. The first thing to do is calculate the Lego Olympic measurements (table below). 

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EXERCISE 2:

Then mark out a Lego Olympics 100m sprint to scale and/or

draw a Lego Olympic track (in chalk, perhaps) and/or

step out a Lego Olympic marathon track and/or

make a pole vault pole to scale for your little Lego Man.

Or bring in a Lego Man/Girl/Pirate and step out the Marathon Track (840m to scale).

This little guy has to run 840 m!!!!! Wow!

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Structure	Real Olympics	Lego Olympics
100m Sprint	100m	2m
400m Sprint	400m
42 km marathon	42,000m
Olympic Pool Length	50m
Olympic Pool Width	25m
Olympic Rowing Course	2,000m
Equestrian Jump Height	2m
Approx Pole Vault Pole Length	5.5m
Javelin Length Men Women	2.6m 2.2m
Olympic Stadium Straight Segment Semi-circle Radius inner Lane Lane Width	84.39m 36.50m 2.5m

Little Lego Men Need lotsa Lego Maths

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There is a lot of maths in Lego, mathspigs, but rather than smash up bridges not to mention toes with 40 kg weights, here are some other cool ways to do LEGO MATHS.

You can make yourself into a Lego Figure like Mathspig, but first ….

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Ideally, students would measure their own Lego Man. Otherwise, use the dimensions shown and fill in the chart. 

To calculate your Lego man conversion factor:

   Lego Conversion Factor =   Your Height mm/ Lego Man height mm

eg. Mathspig Height = 172 cm

Mathspig Lego Conversion = 1720/ 38.2 =  44.6

A full size Lego Mathspig is 172 cm, therefore a full sized lego Mathspigs legs would be:

Mathspig Lego Legs = 14.0 x 44.6 = 624.4 mm = 62.4 cm

Dimensions mm	Lego Man Dimensions mm	Your Real Dimensions mm	Your Lego Man Dimension mm
Height (Not including the round thing ie. the stub)	38.6
Head Height Top to chin	8.5	************
Neck	1.2	*************
Torso Shoulder to hip (Swivel pt)	14.9	************
Leg Length Hip to Floor	14.0	************

Now you could draw or photo shop a real picture of yourself to these dimensions or – this is so cool – just make a Lego Man Pic of yourself @ Reasonably Clever

Zombie Maths 2: Direct Proportion

Welcome to the Zombie Olympics.

This could take some time.

Another way of calculating a Zombie’s velocity

or speed is to use direct proportion.

ZOMBIE eat hockey team ..

EAT Gym Team too… very young

… very tender

mmMMMM …… YUM!

12 minute Maths Guru

Meet Salman Khan. He has put free maths on-line.

This article on Salman appeared in The Sunday Times, UK, 12 JUN 2011.

Salman, 28, started putting tutes online for his 12-year-old niece, Nadia, and things grew. So far the Kahn Academy’s claim to fame are:

* Over 2,400 videos including hundreds and hundreds of 12-minute maths tutes

* Over 63,000,000 lessons delivered.

* Bill Gates kids use the site.

* A staff of 1 with funding from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

* Tutes on Biology, Chemistry and Physics too.

You can look up the maths tutes by topic @ The Khan Academy.

Or search topics on Youtube eg. Introduction to Conics Khan

Why Does Mathspig like The Kahn Academy? Because it’s:

1. Free.

2. Quick

3. Clear

4. Low-key

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Salman gives digital chalk-and-talk tutes like a teacher. He hand draws the equations and graphs. He uses a calculator from time to time, but he tends not to use whizz bang spreadsheet graphs or perfectly presented textbook equations. It’s a bit wobbly and it’s all coming from Salman’s head.

And students like this approach. It makes maths look do-able.

Go, Salman.

Mathspig thinks you are just GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

 Australia’s Year 7 – 12 Maths Curriculum is already on-line and free, funded by McDonald’s. See What are maths teachers for, sir?

The tutes on Maths Online are produced by Aussie Maths teachers and they are very good. Mathspig, of course, imagined the quadratic function tutes might look something like this: