Newsletters | Newsletter Archive BLOSSOMS What's New? May-June 2013
   
 
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May-June 2013

What's New?

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Newest BLOSSOMS Lesson – “The Pythagorean Theorem: Geometry’s Most Elegant Theorem”
Sandra Haupt The latest addition to the BLOSSOMS online repository is a lesson created by
a Massachusetts high school teacher who won the national contest sponsored by BLOSSOMS last fall. Sandra Haupt, a teacher at the Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, MA for the past ten years, won the 2012 contest with her lesson that teaches students about the history of the Pythagorean theorem, along with proofs and applications. This lesson is geared toward high school geometry students who have completed a year of algebra. Ms. Haupt has always been interested in the history of mathematical thinking and the development of mathematical concepts, and makes a point in her teaching to emphasize contributions from both Western and non-Western civilizations. Watch her video lesson here.

MIT BLOSSOMS Now Featured on Gooru, a New Educational Search Engine
GooruBLOSSOMS video lessons are now accessible on Gooru, a free search engine for learning that makes it easy for teachers to discover educational content, organize it into learning playlists and teach and share it with students to study. Gooru is developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education. Its founders envision a world in which the best education content, experts and community come together to provide personalized learning experiences and positive learning outcomes for all students. Gooru’s goal is to streamline teachers’ class preparation process, enabling them to quickly find topic-relevant, standards-aligned resources and organize them into teachable and sharable “collections” — all in one place.
Visit Gooru here.

MIT PRIMES Program Now Available Online = Program for Research in Mathematics, Engineering and Science for High School Students
PRIMES-USA is a new pilot section of PRIMES open to high school juniors (or home schooled students of the same age) from across the United States. The students will work on original research projects in mathematics provided by MIT faculty. Projects will be mentored by MIT graduate students via the Internet, using software and hardware tools for online collaboration. Program participants gain advanced knowledge in the field of their research, write a research paper, and give an oral presentation at the annual PRIMES conference at MIT. Participants are selected on the basis of their demonstrated extraordinary mathematical ability, potential for conducting original research, and self-motivation for independent study. Read more.

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MIT BLOSSOMS Workshop for Massachusetts High School Science Teachers

A workshop for teachers interested in creating MIT BLOSSOMS video lessons will be held on July 9th, from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM at MIT. This workshop is part of a joint project between MIT BLOSSOMS and the MA Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education to create 10 new BLOSSOMS lessons that will become valuable educational resources within the Commonwealth and important tools to support the transition to new state science standards. Read more about the joint project here and for more information on the workshop contact: emurray@mit.edu.

The 5 Most Popular MIT BLOSSOMS Math Lessons

Flaws of Averages

Selfish Drivers: The Braess Paradox and Traffic Planning

The Power of Exponentials, Big and Small

The Quadratic Equation: It’s Hip to Be Squared

Flu Math Games

Meet an MIT BLOSSOMS Teacher
Nabil Nassif and Sophie Moufawad

Nabil Nassif has a Diplôme d'Ingénieur from the Ecole Centrale de Paris, followed by a Master's and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He is Professor in the Mathematics Department at the American University of Beirut where he teaches and conducts research in Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing. Professor Nassif has held several visiting positions in France, Switzerland, USA and Sweden. Watch his BLOSSOMS lesson, "Rational versus Irrational Numbers".