LM_NET: Library Media Networking
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 19:26:00 +0800
Mar 18 10:19:03 1998
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 19:35:23 +0800
From: GANNON <GANNON@wantree.com.au>
Subject: HIT: mathematics in the library (part 3)
From: GANNON <GANNON@wantree.com.au>
Subject: HIT: Mathematics in the library (part 2)
How about using the travel guides to plan and budget a vacation? You could
"give" each student a week and a sum of money and ask him/her to plan
something each family member would enjoy each day.
Maybe you could have them work on percentages, graphs, etc. comparing
different types of books in the library (Easy, Fiction, nonfiction, even
break down into 100s, etc.) You could also have them do an analysis of the
average age of copyright of the different sections, also.
Keeping circulation statistics and purchasing materials/equipment!
Activities involving these two routine functions will not only provide
everyday activities for the students, but may generate a new
understanding and respect for your position and activities.
Statistics - Have the students tally your statistics each month (or week,
or however often you do it). (I would do it myself as well, just to be
sure of their work.) Explain to them that this is an important part of
your end of the year report, and the principal and Board of Education
often use your statistics/report as a whole to decide how much of the
budget you are going to get. Let them do it for books, magazines, AV
materials, and AV equipment (if you do that too) and give them a copy of
your recording sheet to fill in the numbers. If their work is accurate,
you can even take their numbers to do your final tally --- or let them do
it for you!!! (They can also get practice with percentages by figuring
out how much of past budgets were spent on books, AV materials,
magazines, equipment and supplies. You can also give them the
responsibility to tally up how many new items in each category you've
purchased this year, as well as giving them these totals for past years
and letting them see how much their money is buying from year to year.)
Hmmmm.....another thought just popped into my head.....how about letting
them help you with your supplies inventory....they count how many of
whatever you have on hand as opposed to how many you SHOULD have on hand,
and when it's time to reorder.
Purchasing materials - Multi faceted....but they'll soon learn how far
the money doesn't go and that some tough decisions need to be made.
(This lesson is definitely true-to-life, which is what you said the
teacher wants to emphasize.)
1) Using the circulation statistics, let them decide what (if any)
additional AV equipment is needed, and let them prepare a "purchasing
list," complete with prices (which you can ask your favorite AV sales rep
to supply).
2) Let them help you weed your collection, with their job being concerned
solely with how often the book circulates (you still need to evaluate for
content, and your decision would be final). If a book hasn't circulated
X number of times in a given time period, put it on a book truck. After
you've gone through the books on the truck and withdrawn the ones that
need to be weeded, you find some replacement titles. Let them make the
final cost tally, and see how that fits into the budget. (This exercise
can be repeated for AV materials and magazines.)
3) Let them help select (give their opinions on) different CD-ROMs or
indexes that you're considering. Give them the prices and all the
pertinent information about coverage, currency, etc. and let them play
with it to see what they think of it. Let them recommend titles and
tally the cost. If they are comparing several different encyclopedias
(for example), let them construct a matrix covering the different
evaluation criteria for each title, and making their recommendation from
that to decide which encyclopedia they prefer.
4) Putting all of these costs together, let them see how much all these
great things will cost - and how much money you have to spend on them.
Once they see that their wish list exceeds the available money, they'll
have to go back and start cutting the wish list.
Other possibilities: use folk/fairy tales to calculate mathematical
permutations:
#how much straw is needed to turn into how much gold?
#"Growing and Shrinking" issues -- how much, compared to, etc. (See story
"Melisande" -I don't remember author -- her hair grows at different rates,
depending on circumstances/wishes)
Lisa Gannon
Teacher librarian
Woodvale Senior High School
Woodvale Drive
Woodvale
Western Australia 6024
gannon@wantree.com.au
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I've had students work with library statistics -- graphing circulation,
identifying patterns, and proposing explanations. They were stumped by
the jump in biography, 300s, and 900s during February, until someone
thought about Black History Month projects.
I've also asked groups to estimate the number of books in the library
without counting more than five shelves. They need time to examine the
shelves, write out a plan, then implement it.
What about measurement activities? We do activities with maps and scale
in a math/geography unit. Our home ec teacher brings students in to
locate recipes and has them adapt quantities to make enough for entire
class.
What about currency conversions? We look up conversion rates on several
dates during past year, convert US$1000 into francs, pesos, etc. Then we
discuss need to use current sources for some info.
Think about a math related picture book presentation:
Math Curse
Grandpa Tang's Triangle
Greedy Triangle
Eating Fractions
You've got to get yourself a copy of "Arithmetic for Billy Goats" (it
may be out of print, but interlibrary loans should provide you a copy to
"xerox") The tale is one of a billy goat who has been left a load of
corn and decides that he needs to ration it out, as the farmer will be
away for a while. What he describes if the 10 place system, the binary
system, etc........ Great Stuff!!!!
Also, get a subscription to Games magazine.
Get a copy of Math Curse by Jon Scieska to read to them. It is really
funny
about how math is around us every day.
Here's what she did. She had her students choose a famous mathmatician
from a
list that she prepared. The students researched their chosen personality,
then used the ClarisDraw program to create a brochure about their math
person.
ClarisDraw is a draw program included in the suite of programs in
ClarisWorks
integrated software. In the course of designing their brochure, students
had
to use measurements and the object editorin ClarisDraw to create columns
and
text boxes that would fit into the sections of their brochure. They had to
figure out how to set the brochure up so that it would fold into three
sections.
The students then searched the World Wide Web to find pictures of their
mathmatician or other pictures that related somehow to his work or life.
Even
if students do not use computerized resources to construct the brochure,
measurement and planning would still be involved.
Here's what she did. She had her students choose a famous mathmatician
from a
list that she prepared. The students researched their chosen personality,
then used the ClarisDraw program to create a brochure about their math
person.
ClarisDraw is a draw program included in the suite of programs in
ClarisWorks
integrated software. In the course of designing their brochure, students
had
to use measurements and the object editorin ClarisDraw to create columns
and
text boxes that would fit into the sections of their brochure. They had to
figure out how to set the brochure up so that it would fold into three
sections.
The students then searched the World Wide Web to find pictures of their
mathmatician or other pictures that related somehow to his work or life.
Even
if students do not use computerized resources to construct the brochure,
measurement and planning would still be involved.
Here's what she did. She had her students choose a famous mathmatician
from a
list that she prepared. The students researched their chosen personality,
then used the ClarisDraw program to create a brochure about their math
person.
ClarisDraw is a draw program included in the suite of programs in
ClarisWorks
integrated software. In the course of designing their brochure, students
had
to use measurements and the object editorin ClarisDraw to create columns
and
text boxes that would fit into the sections of their brochure. They had to
figure out how to set the brochure up so that it would fold into three
sections.
The students then searched the World Wide Web to find pictures of their
mathmatician or other pictures that related somehow to his work or life.
Even
if students do not use computerized resources to construct the brochure,
measurement and planning would still be involved.
Hi, have you considered how much math is in an Atlas?
(this started out with the lower level math teacher (high school) but is
now being used by the Freshman English teacher for his Library Bingo
project.
I have about 4 different worksheets with 10 questions on each page.
The
questions deal with various questions---- how many flags in the library,
how
many doors to enter or exit, (very simple, non threatening) to the number
of
letters in the last name of the author who wrote (card catalog), how long
ago did the first man walk on the moon (almanac) etc. The answers were
then
placed on the answer sheet, and became the math questions. The answer to 1
added to 2 divided by 3, etc. (where the answer's were "huge" they would
use the last 2 digits, or add the digits together and use that for the
answer to be placed on the sheet). The students are also required to
identify the source of the information.
Lisa Gannon
Teacher librarian
Woodvale Senior High School
Woodvale Drive
Woodvale
Western Australia 6024
gannon@wantree.com.au
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