Leveraging cartoons, or, if only I had a place to stand.

I keep losing, and then finding again, this great set of cartoon puzzles.  They use the principle of the lever to create equations, using pictures of objects.  Yay!

The writing is on the wall

These murals from around Mexico, mostly from the walls of the schools we visited, show various aspects of Mexican culture.  There are old gods, kings, presidents, and revolutionaries.  Revolutionaries stand strong despite injury, or hang together, or ride through the chaos of battle.  Jose Clemente Orozco shows us omniscience.  There is even an exhortation that road-building leads to environmental devastation, a sentiment shared by many a norte-americano.  These fifteen selected pictures show a small slice of the culture in about as efficient a way as possible.

 

This leads to two thoughts.  First, there are probably murals as interesting as these in SLC if you know where to look.  Why not look?  Second, if I want my students to communicate with me and with each other, maybe I should encourage them to construct great sweeping murals in my classroom?  If I have a smartboard, I could even give each student their own artspace, to fill as they see fit, and load and reload whenever they want.  How better to learn about my students and their culture?

Primary school in Amatlan

Middle school in Cuernavaca, Secundaria General no2
"Francisco Gonzalez Bocanegra"
The man in the yellow hat leads the revolution. 
Those red spots appear to be bullet holes.

Normal School (Teacher's College) in Cuernavaca,
Escuela Particular Normal Superior Lic.
Benito Juarez
Emiliano Zapata leads the revolution

BJns
Benito Juarez says "Among individuals, as among nations,
respect for the rights of others is peace."

In a restaurant in Mexico City,
this Orozco mural, "omnisciencia,"
 fills the stairwell.

In Tepoztlan, this mural encourages solidarity.
The pixelated parts that look like beads are
pictures of the tops of candles.

CGE headquarters, Cuernavaca.
Cultural hegemony leaps from Tim's ear like
Athena from the head of Zeus.

FGBms,
Your guess is as good as mine.

FGBms,
The Mexican national symbol is covered
with anti-drug propaganda 

FGBms,
Tim and Kathryn about to be swallowed
by Jaguar

FGBms,
Quetzalcoatl, feathered serpent, welcomes students
to the best decorated history classroom ever.

FGBms,
Rey Pakal, king of the Mayan city of Palenque,
turns away from the teacher

Tepoztlan mural triptych 1
"building better roads is the same as
devastation and urbanization."

Tepoztlan mural triptych 2

Tepoztlan mural triptych 3

My Easel.ly Info-Graphic creation

easel.ly

My final presentation, MAT 613

I don't know what this will look like.  The reason for making the post is, in part, to see if I can embed a prezi.  I believe that you can't view the video unless you're me.  It's got students in it, and they haven't signed off on using their content, so that part just isn't going to be available.

Paul Krugman explains just how essential math is

Ok, in truth, Krugman explains that arithmetic and intuition are the gold standards, and that anything else is superfluous.

The takeaway quote:

A colleague once explained to me that the optimal amount of math for an economist to know is always, of course, exactly the amount of math you personally happen to know — anyone who knows less just doesn’t have the tools, anyone who knows more is excessively teched up. Hey, I think the kids these days are taught way too much math. Also, they should get off my lawn.
 

How true it is.

Three Level Reading guide for Alice

Alice's adventures in Wonderland, 3 level guide.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; "even if my head would go through," thought poor Alice, "it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin." For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it ("which certainly was not here before," said Alice,) and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not;" for she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked "poison," so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, coffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

---

"What a curious feeling!" said Alice. "I must be shutting up like a telescope."
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through that little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this: "for it might end, you know," said Alice to herself, "in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?" And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
"Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself, rather sharply. "I advise you to leave off this minute!" She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. "But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words "EAT ME" were beautifully marked in currants. "Well, I'll eat it," said Alice, "and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!"
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, "Which way? Which way?" holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size; to be sure, this is what generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

---

 

CHAPTER II

Pool of Tears

URIOUSER and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for a moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); "now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!" (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). "Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I sha'n't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can—but I must be kind to them," thought Alice, "or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas."

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. "They must go by the carrier," she thought; "and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice's Right Foot, Esq.
Hearthrug,
near the Fender,
(with Alice's love).

Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!"

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now rather more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a great girl like you" (she might well say this), "to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!" But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

Curiouser and Curiouser

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!" Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, sir——" The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking! "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed during the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
"I'm sure I'm not Ada," she said, "for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she's she, and I'm I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and say 'How doth the little——'" and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:—

"How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

"How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!"

 
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on. "I must be Mabel, after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, 'Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say, 'Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else'—but, oh dear!" cried Alice with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!"
As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking. "How can I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small again." She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
"That was a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; "and now for the garden!" and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, "and things are worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!"
As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.
"I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day."

Here are your questions:

Please read the passage from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.  Look at the questions, and answer them based on what you’ve read.

Literal Level:  Based on the author’s words, either accept or reject the following statements.  Quote the words that back up your decision.

1.       At her smallest, Alice was less than a foot tall.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote:

 

2.       At her tallest, Alice was more than nine feet tall.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote:

 

3.       Alice cried a few ounces of tears.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote:

 

4.       The author compared changing size (scaling) to a telescope.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote:

Interpretive Level:  Read between the lines of what the author wrote.  You may need to compare words from different places, or look for other clues to the author’s meaning.  Include a quote or quotes that lead you to believe what you do.

5.       Changing her size changed the way Alice could interact with the world around her.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote(s):

 

 

6.       Alice grew smaller and larger, which doesn’t usually happen in the real world.  In other ways, the environment behaved more like the real world than like a dream.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote(s):

 

 

7.       When faced with a cake that says “EAT ME,” there is no reason not to eat it.

Accept  /  Reject

Quote(s):

 

.

Applied Level:  Go beyond what the author wrote.  Bring in your understanding of the world.  Relate what you already know to what you’ve read.  Accept or reject the statements, and give a reason.

8.       At nine feet tall, Alice was about twice as tall as she had been before.  The amount of her tears make sense.

Accept  /  Reject

Reason:

 

 

9.       Alice dropped the fan “to save herself from shrinking away altogether.”  If she had continued scaling down, she would have disappeared completely.

Accept  /  Reject

Reason:

 

 

10.   When she got very large, Alice noticed that her feet were farther away than they had been.  She’s right that she wouldn’t have been able to put on her shoes and stockings.

Accept  /  Reject

Reason:

 

 

11.   The rabbit had unusually large hands, for a rabbit.

Accept  /  Reject

Reason:

 

 

12.   The author used a telescope to make the idea of getting bigger or smaller understandable to his readers.  I can come up with a better comparison for someone my age.

Accept  /  Reject

The better comparison:

 

 

Fractals

The New York Times has an article about a model of a fractal, the Mosely Snowflake Sponge.  It's a cool thing made out of index cards, on display at the USC library. 

It led me to The Institute for Figuring, which is dedicated to:

the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and engineering.

a site after my own heart.

Learn to fold an origami lobster.  Marvel at the business card Menger Sponge.  Participate in the Crochet Coral Reef project.  The intersection of math and crafts.