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Full-Text Articles in Algebra
What Is The Shape Of A Traditional Rapanui House On Easter Island? A Multicultural Mathematical Activity Involving Ellipses, Cynthia J. Huffman Ph.D.
What Is The Shape Of A Traditional Rapanui House On Easter Island? A Multicultural Mathematical Activity Involving Ellipses, Cynthia J. Huffman Ph.D.
Open Educational Resources - Math
The Rapanui people of the island Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, at one time had a system of “writing” called Rongorongo. Unfortunately, the ability to read Rongorongo has since been lost. So currently archaeology and oral tradition are the only available sources for information about the early people of the island. Oral tradition states that the houses originally had upside down canoes for their roofs, and thus they are called hare paenga, or in English, boat-houses. In the literature, these boat-houses are said to be elliptical in shape. In this activity, we will investigate the shape of archaeological …
Cgi (Computer Generated Imagery) Matrix Multiplication Activity, Cynthia J. Huffman Ph.D.
Cgi (Computer Generated Imagery) Matrix Multiplication Activity, Cynthia J. Huffman Ph.D.
Open Educational Resources - Math
Many students are motivated by real world applications of mathematics, and most students are familiar with the term CGI from watching movies and playing video games. This particular activity ties matrix multiplication to CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). It has been used successfully with high school students in an Algebra II course who had just learned how to do matrix multiplication, middle school and high school students (some of whom were seeing matrix multiplication for the first time) attending a special Math Day on a university campus, and with College Algebra students (during a unit about matrices).