Week 9

The Trapezium Cluster of stars in the Orion Nebula about 1,500 light years away from us. Light from the European 'Dark Ages' will be just reaching these stars from us now. Fortunately much mathematics was preserved through that period in history by the Irish and then the Arabs.

We have completed the Algebra exam - well done everyone, and what a relief!

We are now ready to start the next topics. John's class will be moving on to 'Investigative Geometry', and Josh the Hammer's group will continue with a more advanced Algebra topic: 'Products and Factors'.

Some students will be changing class depending on their needs and preferences.

This weeks (Hammer) maths assignment is here, and is due on Wed April 4th

Week 8

This week we finish this Algebra unit. Wednesday and Thursday will be revision, and on Friday we will conclude with a Topic test.

The following Tuesday we will re-shuffle the class to ensure that students needs are met, and then we will start on the next topic.

Click here for the latest (Hammer) assignment - due Tue 27th March.
.

Week 7

Algebra continues in Week 7, following a relatively non mathematical week at Nimboida.

This week we cover operations on fractions - adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing - all with the added twist that some of the numbers are variables - ie unknown.

Don't despair - the same rules for ordinary fractions still apply - just a little more care is required, and lots of practice!

example:

a/3 + a/4 (one third of 'a' plus one quarter of 'a')
= 4a/12 + 3a/12 (before adding we must make the denominators the same)
= (4a + 3a)/12
= 7a/12 (which is the same as 7/12ths of a)

Click here for the latest (Hammer) maths assignment which is due Tue March 20th.
.