by Nik Fisher

Created on: November 20, 2008

Here is a question, if the word math can invoke fear and anxiety in a child's heart, then how are you ever supposed to inspire students to learn? Easy, you just cleverly hide mathematics in subjects that students enjoy more, such as art and games. There are lots of fun activities children can participate in that are introductory to high level mathematics. With a good foundation in the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and an understanding of fractions, children can accomplish much more in math than they would think is possible even at an undergraduate level. If you don't believe me, you can try these activities out for yourself.

Fun With Fractals

The study of fractals is a very new and wide open field in mathematics. The term "fractal" was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in the mid seventies and since then even a firm definition has been near impossible. Roughly speaking, a fractal is a geometric shape that is self similar; it contains infinite copies of itself. Fractals have proven themselves immensely useful in fields such as data compression, video game technology, and even medicine.

Children can play with fractals without realizing they are doing math. Have the student take a piece of paper and draw a straight line. Then have them break the line into even thirds. The first and final thirds will remain straight. The middle third will be broken into a half. Erase the middle line and replace it with two lines whose length is equal to the original middle line so that they form a triangle. After this is completed you will see a section that looks like this, __/\__. Have the student continue doing this for every segment of the new shape, for the second iteration there will be four of them. Doing this should help the student feel more at ease with fractions. There are analytical projects you could do with this but it may be a little too challenging for young students. In case you wanted to try though, you could have the students measure the total length and the number of segments of every iteration. They could try to find patterns in these numbers.

Another fun fractal project is the forest fire fractal. Supply each student with a piece of graph paper and a random number generator. For the random number generator a four sided die, a spin wheel, or a calculator with such capabilities will be just fine. Randomly generate a number between 1-4, this number will indicate the number of squares with which the student will start. Have the student

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