The origin of the function concept is usually traced to Galileo's work on motion. We argue that specific proto-function concepts appeared in the work of Tartaglia a century before the publication of Galileo's Two New Sciences. The study of Tartaglia's ideas can be used in the classroom as a historical introduction to various function concepts,…

Describes a variation of the familiar laboratory investigation on the spring and mass oscillator. (SK)

Presents a lesson designed to give teachers the know-how to offer secondary school students opportunities to model real-world phenomena through a variety of functions and construct and draw inferences from tables and graphs summarizing data from these situations. Investigates the roller-coaster questions in a graduate class on methods of teaching…

Uses the problem of determining when a car and truck traveling at the same speed will collide after the truck has applied its brakes to illustrate the need to consider boundary conditions when solving problems in elementary mechanics. (MDH)

Presents a motion problem that students in a college physics class are asked to solve and later asked to continue to analyze until they have stopped learning from the problem or the problem itself is finished. (MDH)