Proctor Academy - You Do the Math

I am not a numerologist; (in fact, numbers gave me a great deal of anxiety in my youth.) I do, however, wear a lot of flannel shirts. These facts are meaningful today because the date is 1/11/11 and it is also "flannel day" on campus.

So we'll talk about numbers and observe plenty of flannel. A poster outside the Math Office declares, "We All Use Math Every Day!" I've been reading it for years with some suspicion. Yet, as I ponder the assertion today, I think I'm coming around....

The boys pictured below are calculating where to place a target on the floor so that a ball shot out of this gun will fall at a trajectory that will hit it.

And these kids are determining the radius of a cylindrical Quaker Oats box by measuring the circumference with a string. The equation C=D(pi) or "circumference equals diameter times pi" is all we need.

At last, it seems, I am learning some math. Unfortunately, Lindsay Brown wasn't walking the planet when I needed her. The students below calculated the ratio of diameter to circumference to be 3.15 from hand measurements of a Hubs Peanut can, which is approximately .01 off from pi. Pi is an irrational number (tell me about it....) so the difference has to be approximate. Did the relatively large size of the canister help them be so accurate, or are they simply superior at measurement?

They claimed the latter. The kids below are making posters inspired by their calculations of their personality types as scored on the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.

One mathematical ratio (S/T) that makes a difference here is the number of students divided by the number of teachers, because advisors meet with their advisees Tuesday mornings for 40 minutes. We have 357 students with approximately 25 in Spain, Mountain Classroom, Morocco and Costa Rica; so we'll subtract them from the equation. We have 80 advisors, so if you divide the 332 who are on campus by the number of advisees, you get about 4.15 per group.