There is always a demand for new and different Math sites, and this annual edition of the newsletter is always much anticipated. Math covers such a range of topics there's always something new and different to explore. If you're looking for previous Math site recommendations, check out http://surfaquarium.com/news.htm - there are lots of classic sites there. Thanks to Jerry Blumengarten for his in put on our Math edition - I'm always glad to hear from subscribers who would like to cast their votes for favorite sites on a topic. We have a baker's dozen of recommended links this week!

My thoughts and prayers go out to the citizens of Manhattan and Arlington as I write this morning. The worldwide composition of our I.T. newsletter membership is important to me, but even more important today. As educators we have a unique opportunity in society to teach cooperation, tolerance and understanding to all children. As we proceed in our work,then, let us be firm in the conviction that one day all the peoples of the Earth will live in integrity and justice and peace.

• Agriculture and Math Fun - http://www.usda.gov/nass/nasskids/nasskids.htm
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Statistics Service present this collection of lessons and activities that tie in Math, Science and Health topics for your classroom. The lessons cover K-12 classrooms, although the design of the site itself is decidedly elementary. There's a special emphasis on using statistics and graphing to represent and analyze data, so if you're in the market for a site that covers all these bases you'll definitely want to plan a virtual visit.
• Bamdad's Math Comics - http://www.csun.edu/~hcmth014/comics.html
  Bamdad Samii from the Developmental Math program at California State University, Northridge hosts this page of Math-related comic strips covering every strip imaginable from B.C. and Calvin and Hobbes to the Wizard of Id. Great for breaking the ice when presenting a new topic or for challenging students to think more deeply about a specific Math concept, you can make use of Bamdad's collection with ease.
• Cool Math - http://www.coolmath.com/
  Subtitled "an amusement park of Mathematics", Cool Math is broken down into an elementary section (that covers topics like computation, fractions, geometry and problem solving) and a secondary section (that covers fractals, calculators, functions and calculus). Both sections include games and engaging activities that help develop a greater understanding of sophisticated concepts. The Science page has lots of real world Math connections, and the Parent and Teacher pages round out a very creative site.
• Figure This! - http://www.figurethis.org/
  Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, Figure This! is a series of fun problem solving challenges presented by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics that combines creative ideas with sound Math principles to produce meaningful learning. We're up to some 40 challenges, like Why aren't manhole covers square?, Can you make money selling Beanie Babies®? and How many colors are needed on a map of the US? The site is visually pleasing (although slow loading due to its graphic nature) and the activities are well-developed with support materials for each challenge like Getting Started, Try These,Think About This, Did You Know? and (of course) the Answer.
• Fun Math Lessons - http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Lessons/
  Cynthia Lanius of Rice University presents this myriad of Math lessons ready to use with students. Let's graph allows students to enter data and watch the graph change before their eyes right online. Fun and Sun Rent-A-Car challenges students to plan a one week trip to Florida. The Million Dollar Mission require students to figure out whether they would rather have a million dollars in a lump sum or a salary of one cent that doubles every day for thirty days. And Geometry Online is a dazzling collection of secondary-level geometry activities.
• King's List of Math Activities - http://www.k111.k12.il.us/king/math.htm
  Compiled by Helen Dewitt of the King's Middle School in Kankakee, Illinois, this is an extensive listing of all kinds of Math lessons and activities, presented by practical subject areas like Basic Facts, Integers, Mean/Mode/Median, Missing Number in Series, Prealgebra and Probability. Helen has done the work for you, so all you need to do is get in here, roll up your sleeves and make the most of this treasury of materials!
• Math Programming and Beyond - http://library.thinkquest.org/J002581/
  This ThinkQuest entry practices what it preaches, combining Math and Visual Basic programming to provide an exciting outer space simulation in which participants must choose to either save themselves or their entire space fleet from impending doom. The combination of Prealgebra and programming makes for a truly interactive experience that includes tutorials, quizzes and games. There's enough here that this could be an ongoing challenge in your class.
• Maths in the Factory - http://www.cadburylearningzone.co.uk/maths/
  Yup - I saw an "in" and I took it - chocolate and Math! Cadbury offers this fun and tasty presentation of how Math is used to make chocolate. There are five activities specifically on Math and chocolate making, as well as a section on how chocolate is made and a challenge to design a new kind of chocolate bar. To use the Teacher's Zone you'll need to register your school name and zip code, but once you've done so you're privy to all kinds of support materials, lessons, downloads and much, much more. The site is designed with input from teachers in London and Birmingham England, so it's a great chance to interact with educators from the other side of the pond.
• Mudd's Math Fun Facts - http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/
  Hosted by the Math Department of California' Harvey Mudd College, Math Fun Facts offers a searchable database of all kinds of intriguing facts that connect Mathematical knowledge to all kinds of everyday applications. Recent facts have included "Why an International Date Line?", "Sure Betting on Different Beliefs" and the "Ham Sandwich Theorem". Ideal for middle school math classes and above, you'll love the convenience of this cache of activities.
• National Math Trail - http://www.nationalmathtrail.org/
  "The National Math Trail is an opportunity for K-12 teachers and students to discover and share the math that exists in their own environments. Students explore their communities and create one or more math problems that relate to what they find. Teachers submit the problems to the National Math Trail site, along with photos, drawings, sound recordings, videos--whatever can be adapted to the Internet. All submissions will be posted to the site as they are submitted." The result is an archive of geographically-related Math problems from all over the country.
• The Proof - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/proof/
  This companion website to the NOVA presentation on Fermat's last theorem is full of connections across your curriculum: Math, Science, History, Language. This problem has haunted mathematicians for more than 300 years, until Andrew Wiles broke the code and announced his discovery. The site also covers the work of Sophie Germain in the 1700s on the theorem, and the ultimate connection Fermat's work has to the Pythagorean theorem. Some of the site requires the Shockwave plugin.
• Shockwave Montessori Games - http://www.our-montessori.com/home.html
  These five games use Shockwave 8 or higher to creative dynamic screens your students can manipulate to understand the algorithms of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the philosophy espoused by Maria Montessori. Click on one of the links and the resulting window takes over your entire screen, but it is a full, rich environment in which children can learn. Using a phone line it's slow loading, but worth the wait. If you've been looking for a digital, developmentally appropriate Math site this may be what you had in mind.
• Visual Fractions - http://www.visualfractions.com/
  Here is a great interactive way to review and reinforce fractions, from numerators and denominators to visual representations and mathematical operations, these JAVA-based activities ask students to apply their knowledge of what you've already taught in class. The applets are not always completely intuitive at first, but the directions and "Explain" buttons help you to get around. Most importantly, these activities are fast loading and devoid of the distracting bells and whistles we've all become to familiar with on some reputedly "educational" websites.
  
  

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Please send in URL's of high quality sites which may be of interest to our readers to walter@surfaquarium.com! Also, I'm always looking for new topic ideas and input!

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