Questions tagged [mathematics-in-daily-life]
For questions related to the use of mathematics or mathematical arguments in daily life.
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What's a replacement for "married couples" in combinatorics problems?
Many counting problems start with the assumption that we have a certain number of men and women or a certain number of couples, with the assumption (often unstated) being that that gender is binary (...
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Impressive common misleading interpretations in statistics to make students aware of
Statistics are used everywhere; politicians, companies, etc. argue with the help of statistics. Since calculations are needed for the interpretation of statistics, such things should be taught in ...
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How can we handle grocery store/bus stop conversations better?
When chatting with a new acquaintance for a few minutes, our profession often comes into the conversation and then takes over. We're all familiar with this line at grocery stores, airplanes, trains, ...
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Why do we prove things we already know?
As math majors and math educators we take for granted the importance of proofs and being precise. However with I have found that non-math majors are content with anything that looks reasonably ...
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Using joke / song / film / pop culture to exhibit a new mathematical concept
Questions:
Do you have any examples from pop culture (say, a joke, or an episode of a show, or a song lyric, etc.) that utilize and/or effectively illustrate a mathematical concept?
Have you used any ...
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Inspirational Mathematics Books for Teenager
My daughter is in 6th grade. She likes mathematics, i.e., she likes to learn mathematics at school, is also good at what she has learned at school and is rather quick at picking new things. However, ...
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Examples of arithmetic and geometric sequences and series in daily life
In this part of the course I am just trying to show that we actually see a lot of sequences and series every day in our regular life.
I already found some examples such as the house numbers when you ...
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Electronic devices to replace pencil and paper
My question is similar to this one: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1833459/math-without-pencil-and-paper Except I'm not physically disabled.
Pencil and paper have been used for centuries to ...
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Math Everywhere Activities
Question
Does anyone have a nice list of "no effort" activities that parents can employ to promote numeracy? I am primarily interested in K-8 activities.
Exposition
Often parents ask me about what ...
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Reading Math for Fun - Could it be for Anyone?
In everyday life, you don't encounter many people who express that they feel a connection between mathematics and fun. Not where I live, in any case. This is true, despite that fact that many people ...
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What real-example of modulo-arithmetic would work for American students?
The typical explanation for modular arithmetic is calling it by another name, "clock-arithmetic", and comparing it to the way the hour value of clocks "resets" every time it has passed midnight.
This ...
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Nice examples of limits to infinity in real life
I have to teach limits to infinity of real functions of one variable. I would like to start my course with a beautiful example, not simply a basic function like $1/x$. For instance, I thought of using ...
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Mathematics in real life
I am interested in examples of use of mathematics in real life situations.
To be more precise, something that could be presented to undergraduate students in order to motivate them for studying maths.
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Entertaining and fun books about mathematics for (basically) liberal arts students
I’m looking for books of a general interest in maths, like a maths novel, a fun book about maths, a humorous introduction to higher concepts, something outside of tests, something they can read on ...
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Why convert to sums of two squares?
Why bother writing a given integer as the sum of two squares? Does this have any practical application? Is there an introduction on a first year number theory course which would motivate students to ...
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Easy and good book on combinatorial problems
I am searching for a book on combinatorics and/or mathematical puzzles for very beginners in easy English. The book should not contain detail mathematical expressions, will contain easy understanding ...
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What’s a practical daily application of each times table?
I’m teaching my five year old to read an analogue clock and realised how easy it is because (against teacher advice) I already taught him the 5x tables by rote.
He knows other tables too but they’re ...
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Are there any mathematics based game apps which require students (between 10 - 16 years) to apply their maths knowledge to play the game
So, what we essentially mean is students will apply their knowledge on divisibility, factorization, prime numbers, lcm, gcf, decimals, fractions, etc to play the game. A somewhat different approach to ...
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What would you recommend for the math thinking course for school?
We're going to make a new math course for kids as intermediary between middle and high school with math profile (for preparation to entrance exams to high school), and before the main part (arithmetic,...
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What are sources for non-routine problems involving quadratic functions (in one variable)?
I'm planning to get some sources which explain beautiful problems about quadratic function. I know that there are another kind of functions, but the quadratic function has different applications in ...
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The spatial thinking course for primary school - what to use?
We're planning to run the project for first two grades of the elementary school kids, in which we want to facilitate the spatial thinking development along with the regular arithmetic course and make ...
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How and what to teach on a second year Engineering Mathematics?
In the late 80’s and early 90’s there was the idea of ‘calculus reform’ and some emphasis and syllabus changed. The order of doing things in calculus also changed with the advantage of technology.
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Is integrated math class the same as mathematics class?
The first high school I went to I did Integrated Math 1 my Freshman year, Integrated 2 my Sophomore year, and Integrated 3 my junior year. My junior year I transferred to a continuation school where I ...
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Topics for undergraduate seminar for mathematics educators
There are some general questions about potential topics for undergraduate seminars:
topics for an undergraduate Math seminar
Undergraduate Math Seminar topic
I am looking for topics for a 15-hour ...
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What are different Mathematical concepts which can be introduced to 12-16 year students in an activity based way
Activities are a great way to engage students with Mathematics. And that also helps them to visualise mathematical facts. For example, Pi in its decimal form appears to have no pattern (we used to say)...
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The effects of telling the public that Mathematics is everywhere [closed]
Question: What are some arguments for and against telling the public that Mathematics is everywhere? I would like to know if there is any evidence that telling the public Mathematics is everywhere ...
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How can I visualize differential equations and Integration in real life?
How can we understand differential equations and Integration in real life so that we can understand calculus easily. All we do here, at university level is memorize calculus and get the answer. We ...
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What are your most recommended resources to teach fractions?
Please share your resources for learning and teaching fractions...sites, videos, worksheets etc.
I am looking for online resource similar to this: https://worksheetgenius.com/math/fractions-add/ with ...
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Can anyone help give pointers of Mathematics Story Telling Animated Videos for Age Group 10 - 15?
Ideally, these videos should talk about a real life problem which student can relate to and then showing logically how the problem can be solved. Later bringing in the right mathematical tool to solve ...
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