This Week′s Lesson Plans for NUMB3RS episode "All's Fair," airing March 31: Click here to see all available activities for current and past episodes.
NEW NUMB3RS Activity: "Sudoku Puzzles"
This activity explores sudoku puzzles and Latin squares. The primary puzzle given in this activity is a traditional 9 x 9 puzzle, but the activity also deals with how many different puzzles are possible. By considering very small puzzles, students can begin to think about just how many are possible.
NEW NUMB3RS Activity: "Logging Witnesses"
In this activity, students create a logistic regression based on a set of data to determine the probability that a suspect is either male or female given the suspect′s height.
NEW NUMB3RS Activity: "Guess My Type or Lose"
This activity shows how an extension of game theory could be used to identify a suspect. John Nash won a Nobel Prize for his work in game theory in helping people understand how decisions were made if everyone had complete information on everyone, including motives for decisions. John Harsanyi later won a Nobel Prize for extending Nash′s work studying the case where everyone does not have complete information on how decisions are to be made, but some know that certain types of individuals may tend to make similar decisions. This activity applies Harsanyi′s processes to a terrorist case.
Want to meet the stars and producers of NUMB3RS? What do teachers think about "We All Use Math Every Day?"
David Krumholtz, star of the Paramount/CBS hit TV show NUMB3RS, will appear at the NCTM 2006 Annual Meeting and Exposition on April 28th in St. Louis, Missouri. Krumholtz, along with the executive producer/creator of NUMB3RS will conduct a Q&A session with teachers and sign autographs. The session will take place Friday, April 28 at 6 pm in the Ferrara Theater at the convention center.
Teacher: Dr. Alejandra Sorto
School: Texas State University in San Marcos
Grade Level: Teaching Graduate Students in the School of Education
Years Teaching: 15
"This is a novel idea – it′s so neat that you can go home and watch a math show on TV then do an assignment about it. It′s so much more motivational. Sometimes we try to motivate our students by saying that mathematics is used and the students just roll their eyes. But this goes beyond that and it has never been done before. It′s something we′re very excited about.
"The live aspect of the show is one of the best parts. Once you videotape it and show it in a school setting, then it becomes another one of those things we teachers have already.
"I also like all the mathematical variations that are involved within one activity – the mathematics that comes in is not necessarily restricted to one topic. One activity that we did relates to statistics, measurement, and all sorts of other fields of mathematics and not to mention the outside applications. That was another thing we address in our class too – that we want to integrate as much as we can about mathematics and this is just a great tool."
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