Math(s)

 Good morning all, I'm a philosopher, at least I'd like to think I am.  One of the things that always intrigued me was the tragedy of the commons.  It is the idea that if someone is owned by no one, it is abused by everyone.  The best example is the ocean, for example the cod fisheries outside of Boston.  No one owned the cod, and everyone fished (because when it's the commons, the best thing you can do is to use it faster than everyone else because no one owns it).  This leads to the cod fishery being depleted and the whole fishing industry grinding to a halt.   In this incarnation, I want to talk about insurance and the litigious nature of our society.  We have a culture of "something for nothing" and the idea that if  you sue someone huge (like an insurance company, a school, the government, McDonalds) you aren't hurting anyone.  You are getting something for nothing.  But no one considers that these lawsuits are the death by a thousand cuts to everyone.  W

 Good morning, I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  I noticed math in a few different places, per usual . . . but I'm wondering how to bring them into my classroom.  The wind blew around my kayak a bit, so the math of that (hydrodynamics vs aerodynamics) could be interesting.  However, I'm not sure (yet - growth mindset) how to make that accessible to 7th graders, since it is calculus based physics.  I also saw several ripples (well, every time I cast my lure).  I'm still wondering how to present it, but I love that I can see it.  Maybe I can show my students first that it is there, and ask them to find it themselves and describe it.   Anyhow, I like fractals and curves - and in the context of nature they are better.  Math is too often seen in the absence of context, and what it actually is is the language of the sciences.  The language of what happens in the real world.  If my students could see this, at 7th grade or in college, they might love what I teach instead of (mo