Throughout time people have been measuring the rising and setting positions of celestial objects with respect to the horizon. The motivation for this paper is to provide a link between mathematical and observational approximations for the Sun's declination (angular distance from the celestial equator). One source had students do an experiment with…

This work is part of a larger project that seeks to understand how students blend (integrate) chemistry and mathematics as they work through chemical kinetics problems. Here we focus on four students from our larger sample: two students that demonstrated more instances of blending chemistry and mathematics in their interviews ("high-frequency…

This paper will cover the design of a learning environment as a classroom regarding the Quadratic Equations, Functions and Graphs. The goal of the learning environment offered in the paper is to design a classroom where students will enjoy the process, use their skills they already have during the learning process, control and plan their learning…

This study illustrates how mathematical communication and learning are inherently multimodal and embodied; hence, sight-disabled students are also able to conceptualize visuospatial information and mathematical concepts through tactile and auditory activities. Adapting a perceptuomotor integration approach, the study shows that the lack of access…

This article reports on a study of six Grade 11 learners' levels of understanding of concepts related to the function definition and representation. Task-based clinical interviews were used to elicit the learners' interpretations and reasoning when working with these function-related concepts. Indicators for Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS)…

When hoping to initiate or sustain students' interest in mathematics teachers should always consider relevance, relevance to students' lives and in the middle and later years of instruction in high school and university, accessibility. A topic such as the mathematics behind networks science, more specifically scale-free graphs, is up-to-date,…

Most mathematical functions can be represented in numerous ways. The main representations typically addressed in school, often referred to as "the big three," are graphical, algebraic, and numerical representations, but there are others as well (e.g., diagrams, words, simulations). These different types of representations "often illuminate…

There has been a lot of material written about logarithmic spirals of golden proportion but this author states that he has never come across an article that states the exact equation of the spiral which ultimately spirals tangentially to the sides of the rectangles. In this article, the author intends to develop such an equation. (Contains 5…

One of the units of in a standard differential equations course is a discussion of the oscillatory motion of a spring and the associated material on forcing functions and resonance. During the presentation on practical resonance, the instructor may tell students that it is similar to when they take their siblings to the playground and help them on…

How tedious algebraic manipulations for simplifying general quadratic equations can be supplemented with simple geometric procedures is discussed. These procedures help students determine the type of conic and its axes and allow a graph to be sketched quickly. (MNS)

Discusses a method of cubic splines to determine a curve through a series of points and a second method for obtaining parametric equations for a smooth curve that passes through a sequence of points. Procedures for determining the curves and results of each of the methods are compared. (YP)

Two different numerical methods, the bisection method and simple iteration, are discussed and illustrated by approximating the real solution of an equation, with programs for the two methods included. Alternative methods are also indicated. (MNS)

The possibility of approximating a function with a linear combination of exponential functions of the form e[superscript x], e[superscript 2x], ... is considered as a parallel development to the notion of Taylor polynomials which approximate a function with a linear combination of power function terms. The sinusoidal functions sin "x" and cos "x"…

Given a conic section, the locus of a moving point in the plane of the conic section such that the two tangent lines drawn to the conic section from the moving point are all mutually perpendicular is a curve. In the case of an ellipse and hyperbola this curve is a circle referred to as the director circle. In the case of the parabola this curve…

Illustrated is the problem of solving equations and some different strategies students might employ when using available technology. Gives illustrations for: exact solutions, approximate solutions, and approximate solutions which are graphically generated. (RT)