All Your Math Are Belong To Us

S.T.E.M. Project Pulp Science Fiction Cover

Narrative
During the course of cobbling together the many facets of the NMSTARG plan, and wanting to find a way to give back to our community, we stumbled upon the idea that these concepts would make terrific Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) projects for High School students taking an upper level math class, such as Enriched Algebra 2 or Pre-Calculus.

As it turns out, designing and planning a space mission involves the use of many different mathematical concepts and equations that students learn in their Algebra classes.

While the concepts and mathematics involved in astronautics can be daunting (after all, if someone wants to describe something that is easy to do, they may use the saying "this ain't rocket science, ya know", which implies that rocket science is indeed, difficult), we will be using ordinary High School Algebra. Specifically, we will be using square root equations, linear equations, and logarithmic equations. These topics are introduced in Algebra 1, and are expanded upon in Algebra 2 and beyond.

So the invariable question from students becomes "Why do we have to do all of this S.T.E.M. stuff anyway?" and "Why do we have to do all this extra work?" and "This is so lame."

Continued at:

http://www.stemfortheclassroom.com/2013/02/all-your-math-are-belong-to-us.html