Many mathematicians visited Navajo schools this Spring. Visits started in March and lasted up until the first days of May.
Week of March 6, 2017
Bob Klein did the following:
- Monday, March 6:
- 10-11:30am: Santa Fe Indian School. Santa Fe, NM. (Meetings)
- 5-7pm: Santa Fe Math Teacher’s Circle. Santa Fe, NM. Topic: Breakfast with Bill Gates.
Santa Fe Prep campus, Room 1 (1101 Camino de la Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505–map) contact James Taylor, jtaylor@sfprep.org for registration/questions. FULL INVITATION (PDF)
- March 7-8:
- Navajo Prep Academy, Farmington, NM (Meetings and 3 classroom sessions)
- March 9:
- Whitehorse HS, Montezuma Creek, UT
Week of April 17, 2017
- April 18: Dave Auckly and Remi Moliner at Indian Wells Elementary School
- April 18: Tatiana Shubin at Tuba City Junior HS
- April 19: Dave and Remi at Page HS and Page MS.
- April 20: Dave and Remi at Leupp School
- Tatiana at Many Farms HS
- Tatiana at DEAP (Navajo, NM)
- Dave and Remi at Many Farms Community School
- Tatiana at Tsehootsooi Intermediate Learning Center (Ft Defiance, AZ)
- Dave and Remi at Tsehootsooi Intermediate Learning Center (Ft Defiance, AZ)
Week of April 24, 2017
- Monday, April 24: Amanda Serenevy visits Tuba City Boarding School
- Monday, April 24: Bruce Bayly’s team visits Tsaile Public School
- Thursday, April 27: Mark Saul and Amanda visit Monument Valley MS and HS
- Thursday, April 27: Bruce Bayly’s team visits St Bonaventure Mission and Indian School
- Thursday, April 27: James Taylor visits TILC
- Thursday, April 27: Bob and Tatiana visit Whitehorse HS
- Friday, April 28: Amanda visits Valley HS, Sanders
- Friday, April 28: Mark Saul visits Lukachukai Community School
- Friday, April 28: Bruce Bayly’s team visits Shonto Prep School
- Friday, April 28: Bob and Tatiana visit Navajo Prep
Week of May 1, 2017
- Monday, May 1: Tatiana visits Newcomb HS
- Tuesday, May 2: Tatiana visits St Michael Indian School
Math Activities
We thank the local teachers as well as the visiting mathematicians that run sessions.
Local Teachers include Anna Wold, Craig Young, Justine Carryer,
Sessions included
Number bracelets — An interesting puzzle creating sequences of numbers via simple rules.
Fibonacci Mutant Bunnies An interesting variant of the Fibonacci sequence that allows choice. It is due to Gordon Hamilton.
One description of the Fibonacci Sequence is given by Vi Hart:
Fibonacci Doodles Video
The generalization is described by Gord:
Killer Bunny Video
A PDF of slides that go with this video is
Fibonacci Mutant Bunnies PDF
Squaring and Subtracting
An addition/subtraction logic puzzle
See The same on a different page
Digits Figits
Look at the pattern of repeating decimals for various fractions.
Also see Amanda’s Digits File
Some Math Magic
(In 2017)
Step 1: Pick a number between 1-10
Step 2: Multiply your number by 2
Step 3: Add 5 to your total
Step 4: Multiply your new total by 50
Step 5: If you’ve already had your birthday this year add 1767
Step 6: If you haven’t had your birthday this year add 1766
Step 7: Subtract the 4 digit year you were born in from your total
Step 8: You should only have a 3 digit number: the first number is the one you chose at the beginning, the last two numbers are your age
2nd one:
Step 1: Choose any 3 digit number
Step 2: Reverse the digits (for example 123 becomes 321)
Step 3: Subtract the smaller number from the larger number (ex: 321 – 123 = 198)
Step 4: Reverse the digits from your answer to step 3 (ex: 198 becomes 891)
Step 5: Add the two numbers from steps 3 and 4 (ex: 198 + 891 = 1089)
The following video shows some math circle leaders running the parity lesson at a Circle on the road in DC:
Here is a video of Linda Green leading the watermelon session.
Watermellon video
We did business card origami at a couple of schools.
The following website has a good collection of instructions:
We also played nim (periodic 1-pile). See
for more Nim
We considered canceling the 9s.
Handcuff problems are always fun. Tie two people togeth as follose and let them figure out how to separate.
