I was at the KYMATYC Conference over the weekend and was inspired by a Presentation on “Introducing Topics with Media.” When I came home from the Conference, I created this page on Math in Film and Media. This was an excellent way for me to remember everything I learned during the session. It also helped me remember some things I’ve done in the past, which I’d forgotten.
So, what does this have to do with Logarithms and Related Rates? Well, one of the Media Clips shared during the session was The Log Song – Ren & Stimpy. And this morning, a student emailed me saying, “That Chapter with logs was extremely challenging for me. Other than that, I think I will do fine.” Since I knew he was going to Chicago for a work trip right before the final exam, I sent him this email:
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If you need a few short videos for your plane ride to Chicago, try these:
Or if trivia is your thing, download these Sporcle quizzes offline for the plane: https://www.sporcle.com/games/tags/logarithm Or if you would prefer a good TED video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzu2POfYv0Y Or for entertainment purposes, a video clip about a totally different type of log: The Log Song – Ren & Stimpy |
Then this afternoon, in my Calculus I class, we were discussing implicit differentiation. In particular, the relationship between Leibniz’s notation and Lagrange’s notation. His generalization only worked for two variables and so I decided to introduce a problem with more than two variables by using this clip: Jeff Clark’s Math in the Movies (How Green Was My Valley). I showed the class the short two-minute clip and then we answered the problem, discussing how to deal with the notation for more than two variables along the way:
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“We have a bathtub that can hold 100 gallons of water. If “A” can fill it at a rate of 20 gallons per minute and “B” can fill at a rate of 10 gallons per minute, and there is a hole in the tub which drains the water at a rate of 5 gallons per minute how long will it take to fill the tub?” |
I enjoyed using Media Clips in the classroom this week and hope I will find ways to do so more often moving forward.
