Math is Everywhere!

Here’s a summer challenge for your brain.  Look around today and see if you can spot math in an unexpected place.

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We had to have some trees taken down around our house this week because they were making the roof rot with their shade and they were dangerous in storms.  Watching the loggers take them down safely was amazing.  One logger used a skidder and a very long wire cord.  The other did the saw work.  They had to be really careful because it is on a hill with the house on the downhill side, and the trees were very close to the house.

They planned their angles, used signs to communicate, tied the cord around the tree (you can see it if you look closely at the picture), and sawed the bottom of the tree with a wedge-shaped cut.  Then the skidder would pull on the cord to help the tree go in just the right direction.  It reminded me a lot of our Crazy 8s math club with the Stuffy Zip Line, using angles to make the stuffies go the fastest they could.

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What math questions come to your mind?  For example, we took down seven trees.  How many cords of wood do you think we got for this winter?  What additional information would you need to solve that problem?  (Another problem is how much water do you think we have had to drink while we’ve been cutting up all the logs and branches to clean up the neighbors’ yard?  Ha ha!)

Maybe you could share an unexpected math encounter with us on your blog or in the comments.  Math is everywhere!

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