Geometry Working Group

Monday, July 9

We began by getting to know everyone today, hearing about fabulous feats and interests of members.

• Christian Jensen is entering a new position and will be teaching pre-calculus so will be working on items related.
• Troy Jones talked about writing optimization problems and uses Geometer's Sketchpad.
• David Evans wants to investigate using more manipulatives in the classroom and G.Sketchpad. He wants to move away from formalized proofs.
• Kris Koch is our Internet person. She is interested in Dissection problems and is in the process of collecting those. Kris is a "Joyce Frost groupie"
• Joyce Frost makes up "puzzles to pack space" and has created about 30 different ones. She has also been corresponding with George Escher by mail regarding such puzzles.
• Sue Hannon is looking at Geometry in various occupations and is also accepting a new position at a Vocational and Career facility as an academic math support teacher. Sue is also interested in fractal geometry and origami.
• Tim Giesbrecht is involved heavily with Geometer's Sketchpad and is interested in writing lessons in Sketchpad from introductory geometry to analytical geometry.
• Jim King teaches teachers and writes explorations among other things. He has a wide selection of "hats." Jim is interested in problems involving center of mass and projected geometry.
• Philip Mallinson specializes in geometric tessellations and polyhedra and is one of our fearless facilitators.

After discussing a number of topics, the group decided to focus on two. One will be the development of lessons about the geometry of 3-dimensional space that underlies Joyce's hinged, space-filling puzzles. The other will be the development of lessons about the connections between geometry, ratios, and centers of mass. This would include the building of a mobile.

Kris and Joyce will work on the first project. Most of the rest of the group will work on the second. Sue is reading about applications of geometry.

Sue Hannon

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