Interactions

1 Dec 1997
Dear friends in the project "Connecting Math to Our Lives",

To those of you who have joined the project in the last few weeks, we send a warm welcome. To those who have already begun their investigation, we want to thank you for the reports you have sent in.

December 1 to December 12 will be a special phase of the project when we encourage everyone involved to interact with the other participants. For the students who have sent in reports, this will be a chance to get feedback on your ideas from students in other classes. This will also be a chance for all involved to write to the other classes who have sent in their introductions to welcome them to the project.

Suggestions for responding:

1. Print out the messages so that your class can answer the following questions about each report (Suggestion: you may want to have your students work in small groups with each group reading and discussing one report.):

a) What did you learn?
b) What did you find most interesting? What surprised you?
c) What questions do you have? What would you like to know more about?

Summarize your responses in a message to share back with the authors.

2. If you have time, we encourage you to welcome any or all of the new classes who haven't yet had a chance to send in their reports. We also encourage you to let the other classes know about the progress you're making.

3. Send a copy of your message directly to the class who wrote the report or whose introduction you'd like to respond to.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to send a copy of your message to orillas-math@igc.apc.org so that we can share a copy with the larger group. This way we will have a chance to get to know one another better.

CONNECTING MATH TO OUR LIVES - Feedback Form
To: _____________________________________________________
From: ___________________________________________________
a) What we learned: ________________________________________
________________________________________________________

b) What we found most interesting and what surprised us:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

c) Questions we have and what we would like to know more about:
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
(Return this to the class who wrote the report with to: a copy to: orillas- math@igc.apc.org> 

Dear Janja,

There is a seculary oak in our school's garden. When I have started my work in School No. 10, 20 years ago, I had planted a apple tree. My students planted too some little trees, 7 years ago, when they have started the school. So, our school's garden is a generations' garden. We are very proud of it!

We are trying to present to you this garden, in a fractal graphics. We hope to inspire you!

I also would like to write to you about a Romanian great mathematician, a great poet in the same time, named Ion BARBU. His math' theorems are reflected in his poems.

You also are interested in the story of triangle. Well, we are sending you a famous fractal named Sierpinski's Triangle. We are drawing some wonderful and interesting graphics versions of this subject.

CONNECTING MATH TO OUR LIVES - Feedback Form

To: Janja Jakoncic and her group
From: Petru Dumitru and Math Group from School #10, Focsani, ROMANIA

a) What we learned:
Fractal is a geometrical object where each part resembles to the whole. The teaching of fractals in primary and secondary school must be in an intuitive way.

b) What we found most interesting and what surprised us: The fractals are so old, but we are discovering it so late!

c) Questions we have and what we would like to know more about:

Raluca and Maria are asking you: What do you think about our idea?
Dani and Florin: Do you try to watch the world and the beauty of the nature, as result a reiteration process?
Elena: What is your lovely poem?

Warm regards,
Ralu, Dani, Florin, Maria, Narcisa, Nicoleta and Elena.
Petru DUMITRU 

December 3, 1997 (sent to all participants)
From: Petru Dumitru (with a note from the math coordinators)
Subject: INTERACTIONS

Summary: Petru's group in Romania responds to the students of Luis Navarro and Marlyn Pena in Puerto Rico.

Hello to everyone in the project "Connecting Math to Our Lives"

We'd like to thank Petru and his students from Romania for opening this interactive dialogue and for sharing their letters with all of us. You'll see this message is directed to Luis Navarro and his students in Puerto Rico but we think that others will be interested in following the exchange too so that we can all get to know one another better. In another message, we'll send you a copy of Petru's letter to  Janja's class in Slovenia.

Petru, in the past the teachers and students have used the feedback form to say what they learned (found interesting, etc.) about reading the other class's work. We see that you've used the feedback form in another useful way: to reflect on what you've learned from you own work. Great idea! Thanks very much for your comments. Nicoleta, Narcisa, Ralu, Maria, you and Dani have some great questions.

Best regards, Kristin, Enid, and Elizabeth

PS. Petru mentions the JPEG graphic he sent of the oak tree. If others would like to receive a copy, please send a note to orillas-math@igc.apc.org and we will try to forward you a copy. 

b) What we found most interesting and what surprised us: The fractals are so old, but we have discovered so late!

c) Questions we have and what we would like to know more about:
Nicoleta and Narcisa are asking you: What poems prefer you? Would you like to send us?
Ralu and Maria: What do you think about our ideas fractal geometry?
Dani: Do you try to watch the world and the beauty of the nature, as result a reiteration process?

We are looking forward to see your geometry poems. What are the math concepts used for this? Do you want use our fractal graphics to inspire you?

Hello Petru and students,

My name is Lillis Weber and I teach High School in Jacksonville Florida.  Each summer I go to a week long seminar at Rutgers University in New Jersey to study discrete mathematics.  This is where I first learned about Fractals.  I find them very fascinating too.  I will be introducing my classes to fractals soon.  I teach three levels of geometry - honors, standard and lower level -they will all do some fractals.  Have you made any Sierpinski's triangles yet?  We first started making 3 D versions of them with straws and strings, then we found some hollow Q-tips that worked just fine when we took off the cotton on each end.  We used cotton crochet cord to make a triangle and tie it with a square knot.  Then add another two Q-tips to the string and tie the string to the original triangle making a rhombus with one diagonal.  Thread the string back through one of the sides of the triangle, add one more Q-tip, and tie the string to the opposite side.  You should now have a tetrahedron.
This is one corner of the level 2 fractal.  After you get 4 level two's made, tie them together to get a level three etc.
Many of my students have Internet access so I will ask them if anyone would like to communicate with you. I have printed out your letter to have them read.  I don't know if I can get your J-peg picture or not.  Could I access it from America Online?  Keep the communication coming - we enjoy your letters.