In this activity about light and reflection, learners use a special device called a Mirage Maker䋢 to create an illusion. What they perceive as an object is really an image in space, created by two concave mirrors. Learners will be surprised when they try to grab the object on the mirror and there's nothing there! Activity includes a light-ray diagram to help explain how the image is created.

This activity will help students understand that people’s perceptions of the world—places, regions, and environments—are constantly changing with new experiences and information. Students will examine Census Bureau data about Los Angeles, and about the rest of California and the United States, to challenge or confirm these perceptions.

In this Nrich activity, students explore combinations in a situation with constraints. The combinations are complicated by sets and subsets. The situation uses a Venn Diagram.

Precalculus (was College Algebra) is an introductory text. The material is presented at a level intended to prepare students for Calculus while also giving them relevant mathematical skills that can be used in other classes. The authors describe their approach as "Functions First," believing introducing functions first will help students understand new concepts more completely. Each section includes homework exercises, and the answers to most computational questions are included in the text (discussion questions are open-ended). Graphing calculators are used sparingly and only as a tool to enhance the Mathematics, not to replace it. Note: this book was updated on the BC Open textbook Project site on February, 17, 2015 to include the version of the textbook with chapters on Trigonometry.

Building on their understanding of graphs, students are introduced to random processes on networks. They walk through an illustrative example to see how a random process can be used to represent the spread of an infectious disease, such as the flu, on a social network of students. This demonstrates how scientists and engineers use mathematics to model and simulate random processes on complex networks. Topics covered include random processes and modeling disease spread, specifically the SIR (susceptible, infectious, resistant) model.

This lesson unit is intended to help teachers assess how well students are able to: recognize and visualize transformations of 2D shapes; and translate, reflect and rotate shapes, and combine these transformations. It also aims to encourage discussion on some common misconceptions about transformations.

Students learn about probability through a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NTX-based activity that simulates a game of "rock-paper-scissors." The LEGO robot mimics the outcome of random game scenarios in order to help students gain a better understanding of events that follow real-life random phenomenon, such as bridge failures, weather forecasts and automobile accidents. Students learn to connect keywords such as certainty, probable, unlikely and impossibility to real-world engineering applications.

This Nrich activity provides a meaningful task for practicing rounding two-digit numbers to the nearest multiple of 10. It encourages children to record their results, notice patterns and make predictions.

During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, we all made sacrifices to slow the spread of the virus and to flatten the curve of infections.The curve itself appears in the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model – a simple epidemiological model that explains some of the basic dynamics of infectious disease. Curve-flattening effects of mitigation measures such as social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing can be seen in the dynamics of the SIR model as can the phenomenon of herd-immunity.In this activity, students are encouraged to derive the SIR model from scratch and to explore dynamical features of the model such as curve flattening and herd immunity.These resources were created by Dr. Robert Kipka of Lake Superior State University. They are intended for high school students and teachers. Calculus or familiarity with families of functions such as logarithms is not required. However, in spite of the relatively modest mathematical background called for, this activity may be challenging.It may help to complete the Three Weeks in March activity before beginning.

Seminar for mathematics majors. Students present and discuss the subject matter, taken from current journals or books. Topics vary from year to year. Topic for Fall 2002: Quantum calculus. Instruction and practice in oral communication provided.

Seminar for mathematics majors. Students present and discuss the subject matter, taken from current journals or books and write up exercises. Topic for spring 2003: Elementary topological properties of differentiable manifolds. Topics covered include Sard's theorem, the Thom transversality theorem, vector fields and the Poincare-Hopf theorem, and cohomolgy via differential forms. Prerequisites subject to negotiation with the instructor. Instruction and practice in oral communication provided. In this course, students take turns in giving lectures. For the most part, the lectures are based on Robert Osserman's classic book A Survey of Minimal Surfaces, Dover Phoenix Editions. New York: Dover Publications, May 1, 2002. ISBN: 0486495140.

This lesson unit is intended to help teachers assess how well students are able to: interpret a situation and represent the variables mathematically; select appropriate mathematical methods to use; explore the effects of systematically varying the constraints; interpret and evaluate the data generated and identify the break-even point, checking it for confirmation; and communicate their reasoning clearly.

This Nrich activity can be used to build up children's confidence with the language associated with 2D shape.

This is a text that covers the standard topics in a sophomore-level course in discrete mathematics: logic, sets, proof techniques, basic number theory, functions, relations, and elementary combinatorics, with an emphasis on motivation. It explains and clarifies the unwritten conventions in mathematics, and guides the students through a detailed discussion on how a proof is revised from its draft to a final polished form. Hands-on exercises help students understand a concept soon after learning it. The text adopts a spiral approach: many topics are revisited multiple times, sometimes from a different perspective or at a higher level of complexity. The goal is to slowly develop students’ problem-solving and writing skills.

This Nrich game offers an excellent opportunity to practice visualizing squares and angles on grids and also encourages students to look at strategies using systematic approaches. Describing strategies to others is always a good way to focus and clarify mathematical thought.

After geometric series, this Nrich problem is one of the simplest infinite series with finite sum, all of whose terms are positive. This geometric demonstration of the result requires students to continue a pattern and to use several steps of reasoning to deduce that the sum is bounded by 2. Summing infinite geometric series also play an important role in the this proof, so this could be used to show an application of them in a larger proof. (It would be useful for students to be able to sum 12+14+18+⋯ before tackling this problem.)

In this activity students will determine how many routes a taxicab can take to get from point A to point B given a set of assumptions.

Doing this Nrich problem is an excellent way to work at problem solving with learners. The problem lends itself to small group work, and provides an engaging context for pupils to use the skills of trial and error, and working systematically.

This course is an elementary introduction to number theory with no algebraic prerequisites. Topics covered include primes, congruences, quadratic reciprocity, diophantine equations, irrational numbers, continued fractions, and partitions.