Subject: Math
Grades: 6-9
Length: 12 episodes @ 20 minutes
Distributors: GPN
School Record Rights: Life of Lease
Website: www.mathinthemiddle.org
Multidimensional approach to teaching integrated math is a multi-faceted resource that provides an integrated approach to enriching middle-school math. Featuring pre-algebra concepts, the thematic units will engage your students. Effective, practical way of achieving the NCTM goal of teaching math concepts as part of an integrated curriculum. Real world math examples enhance a problem-based approach to middle school math.
201 Counting: the importance of counting in music is demonstrated by examining the steps involved in line dancing, the jumps performed in double Dutch and the baton waves of an orchestra conductor. Challenge student to determine count and tempo of a musical piece. Recognize that music is constructed by repeating sets of counts. Convert counts per minute into seconds, then back. Measure the rate at which music has progressed over time.
202 Rhythm: Betty uses clapping to describe rhythm as the pattern into which beats are divided. A composer explains how he uses math to divide counts into units, or measures, which allow for easy musical reading. Students will learn to identify musical notes and understand their respective mathematical values. This episode challenges students to: Determine musical note values and time signatures. Determine how these symbols are based upon a series of ratios between notes. Discover how musicians communicate.
203 Sound: vibration is identified as the key component associated with making sound. The video field trip examines how a soprano singer performs vibration exercises to help strengthen her vocal cords. Use math to determine frequency and hertz, two ways to measure sound. This episode challenges students to: Recognize that all sound is created by vibrations. Determine that vibration is periodic in nature. Understand the concept of periodicity in daily life.
204 Frequency & Vibration: identifies vibration as a necessary component involved in sound production. Your students will use math to uncover the relationship between the fundamental frequency of an object and its subsequent vibration. Challenges students to: Understand simple harmonic motion. Learn that a vibrating surface of any length has only one fundamental frequency. Identify how ratios can be used to plot the harmonic series of a single vibrating surface.
205 Wind Instruments: mathematical representation of sound, as it is produced by wind instruments, is defined through a simple formula. A wind player demonstrates that the sounds of woodwinds and brass instruments are not produced by just blowing into a horn. But if the instrument does not have any strings, where does the vibration come from? This episode challenges students to: Discover how the concepts of proportion and ratio apply to instruments without strings. Discover how instruments that do not have strings produce sound. Learn how sounds are mathematically made by using proportions and ratios.
206 Keyboards & Electronic Sounds: takes a video tour of a music house to discover how the keys and strings of a piano interact mathematically to produce melodies. Examines the evolution of the keyboard. Students produce sounds, connect numeric and graphic components of a synthesizer. Identify the twelve divisions of an octave.
207 Harmony: identifies the mathematical definition of harmony as it relates to sounds which do and do not go together. Demonstrates how linear tones, the divisions of octaves, and the ratios used to describe chords are all used to create songs. Video and print materials challenges students to: Discover how songs are created from mathematically related notes. Use ratios and proportions to understand how combinations of notes create pleasing and not so pleasing sounds. Learn how arrangements of tones allow us to create melodies and harmonies.
208 Sound Travel & Hearing: an examination of sound and its ability to bounce, damage ears, and break glass is covered in this unit. Discussion of measurement of sound, identified through ratios known as decibels, shows students how even a quiet room can be "noisy." This episode challenges students to: Learn how sound waves reach our ears. Identify how different mediums, such as water, affect the speed of sound. Determine how distance, pitch, and volume affect the perception of sound.
209 Acoustics & the Ear: an acoustic engineer describes how geometric equations relating to size, volume, and echo time are used to define how the human ear recognizes sound. Learn from an audiologist who uncovers the inner workings of the ear and shows students that the loudness of sound is more complex than sound "power" alone. This episode challenges students to: Understand how ears process sound. Learn how pitch is related to the sound power needed to hear a sound. Identify how the size of a room and the material used to make its walls can affect the way sound "acts."
210 Recording Music: Have you ever wondered how music is put onto a CD? Students investigate the internal components of the CD with an audio engineer who discloses the secrets of recording music. Video field trips prove that time, amplitude, and frequency calculations play integral roles in the recording business. This episode challenges students to: Learn how sound waves are changed to electrical currents in order to store sound and how this process is reversed when creating sound waves. Learn how binary numbers are used to store music. Convert a base ten number to a binary number.
211 Music Business: Professionals in the music business describe how statistics and percentages are used to determine the popularity of an artist, where the money from album sales goes, and how much the total gate a performer receives. On site interviews uncover the reasons why concert ticket prices cost so much(or so little). This episode challenges students to: Use statistics to compare the popularity of particular pieces or types of music. Use percentages to analyze income sources for musicians. Determine how the income from ticket sales is allocated.
212 Mathematically Musical Refrain: Your students will explore the mathematical connections between numbers and the AM/FM frequencies on the radio dial. Yours hosts discuss their favorite mathematical concepts which have helped them uncover the hidden beauty of music. This episode challenges students to: Review the relationships between math and music. Learn about Pythagoras and the role of strings in the production of pleasing sounds. Study the relationship between whole number multiples and the fundamental frequency.