10-Minute Math

Some of you may remember the pi-rap-video suggested last year. It was the creation of Nathan Shields, a mathematics teacher at Fort Vancouver High School (WA), and a former student of mine.

Nathan has now put together his own creative web site, called 10-Minute Math. Its focus seems to be to provide short videos that explore creative sides of mathematics, with a few tangential elements.

Some diverse things of interest to secondary mathematics teacher that are currently available on the web site:

• The video A Mandelbrot the Size of the Known Universe
• A teacher-made video about teaching slope
• Instructions for boosting the processing speed of a TI-86 by a factor of 3
• A dynamically-controlled millipede
• A visual connection of the Golden Spiral to the arrangement of the seeds on a sunflower
• Frog-Jump game that can be explored using a mathematical strategy
• Instructions for building an inexpensive document camera for use with an LCD projector
• A classroom timer that could prove useful in certain situations