Get the Math!
Posted on December 30th, 2014 by Mary Lord
What do fashion designers, rock stars, and restaurant owners have in common? They all apply algebra in their work! Get the Math promotes algebraic thinking and problem-solving skills through video challenges that illuminate such real-world math.
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Tags: algebra, applied mathematics, fashion, Get the Math, Internet Resources, Mathematics, music, Resources for Teachers, STEM education, Web Resources
In this activity, high school juniors and seniors learn such core chemistry concepts as reaction rates and thermodynamics by making and demonstrating their own Harry Potter-style “magic wands” (sparklers). The lab, which also can serve as a fun Advanced Placement course review, concludes with a class duel between wands of two different chemical compositions. 
Submit a short video about how achieving one or more of the National Academy of Engineering’s “Grand Challenges” would lead to a more sustainable, healthy, secure, and/or joyous world and win up to $25,000. Submissions due by March 2, 2015. 
Can you build a crazy contraption to clean a chalkboard? that’s the task of this year’s Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, open to middle school teams as well as high school and college students. Most registration deadlines fall in January and February, 2015. Ready, set, build!
Light-emitting diodes illuminate everything from traffic signals to shimmering sculptures like this one by Makoto Tojiki. But the researchers whose early 1990s breakthrough – a blue-light LED – made today’s energy-saving white lamps possible toiled mostly in the shadows… until they won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014.
In this fun activity developed by St. Thomas University engineering associate professor AnnMarie Thomas, students of all ages learn the basic principles of electricity by fashioning circuits from play dough, batteries, and LEDs. No soldering necessary!
Want to get kids excited about STEM? Check out Engineering, Go For It (eGFI), one of eight websites on Information Week’s list of free, fun activities and other resources designed to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists.
