A Math Fair is more like a carnival midway than a science fair:
Tables and booths present passers-by with puzzles to solve.
The guests at the Math Fair at Capilano University are invited grade 4/5 students.
The students in Math 190 in teams of two or three set up and preside over the booths and tables.
The students’ tasks include:
- Selecting as a team, two (or more) good puzzles and, if necessary,
then transforming them into something suitable for the visiting grade 4/5 students,
- Solving selected puzzles,
- Adapting the puzzles to this semester’s common theme,
- Writing a proposal describing the potential puzzles to be used at the math fair,
- Creating an interactive tabletop display and manipulatives for the assigned puzzle,
- Reporting weekly progress,
- Presenting the puzzle and displaying it to the class in a dress rehearsal,
- Presiding over the puzzle at the math fair, explaining the puzzle to visiting students,
and helping them solve it as necessary.
Criteria for Puzzles
The chosen puzzle must be
- interesting and do-able,
- hands-on (or you must transform the puzzle into such),
- possible to set up in a display, and
- have a mathematical flavour (this includes logic and reasoning).
Warning: Do not select a puzzle that requires pencil and paper calculations.
Specific puzzles to avoid include
Double and Triple Jigsaw,
Passing Trains,
Turning Trains,
Barbanegra the Pirate, and
the Diehard Puzzle.
Do not use commercial puzzles like Rush Hour.
Sources of Puzzles
- Puzzle books by Martin Gardner; he published many.
- 1000 Playthinks by Ival Moscovich, Workman Publishing, New York, 2001.
- The new puzzle classics; ingenious twists on timeless favourites
by Serhiy Grabarchuk, Sterling Publishing Co., New York, 2005.
- Amazing Mathematical Amusement Arcade by Brian Bolt.
- Math education journals and recreational math journals in university libraries.
Look for a puzzle or problem section.
- Any textbook that talks about Pólya’s four steps for solving problems.
This includes almost every textbook for elementary education teachers.
- The
SNAP
mathematics foundation.
- The Math Fair Booklet by Ted Lewis.
- Elena & Andrej Cherkaev’s Math puzzles.
- Cool Math 4 Kids.
- The AIMS
Puzzle Corner.
- Cut the Knot.
- Look up Sam Loyd in the Wikipedia.