The Impact of Applying the First Two Steps of Polya’s Four ...
Featuring Polya’s Problem
Transcript of Featuring Polya’s Problem
Problem Solving Featuring Polya’s Problem
Fall 2012 HCTM Maui, Hawaii
with Michael Serra
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Resources
How To Solve It, George Polya Discovering Geometry An Investigative Approach, Michael Serra
Smart Moves Developing Mathematical Reasoning with Games and Puzzles, Michael Serra
The Cantebury Puzzles, H.E. Dudeney
Overcoming Math Anxiety, Sheila Tobias
Michael's website: www.michaelserra.net
Business email: [email protected]
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Classics of Problem Solving The Nine Dot Puzzle. Draw no more than four straight lines (without lifting the pencil from the paper) that will cross through all nine dots.
The Frog and the Well. Freddie the Frog is at the bottom of a 30-‐foot well. Each day he jumps up 3 feet, but then, during the night, he slides back down 2 feet. How many days will it take Freddie to get to the top and out?
The Book Worm Problem. Volumes 1 and 2 of a two-‐volume set of math books sit next to each other on a shelf. They sit in their usual order: Volume 1 on the left and Volume 2 on the right. Each front and back cover is 1/8 inch thick, and the pages portion of each book is 1 inch thick. If a bookworm starts at the first page of Volume 1 and burrows all the way through to the last page of Volume 2, how far will she travel?
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Missing Area Puzzle Cut out the 34 x 34 square as shown and rearrange it into the 21 x 55 rectangle. Does this mean 1156 = 1155? Explain what is happening?
The Spider and the Fly Problem Inside a rectangular room, measuring 30’ in length and 12’ in width and height, a spider is at a point on the middle of one of the end walls, 1 foot from the ceiling, as shown at A; and a fly is on the opposite wall, 1 foot from the floor in the center, as shown at B. What is the shortest distance that the spider must crawl in order to reach the fly, which remains stationary? Of course the spider never drops or uses its web, but crawls fairly.
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Polya’s Problem Into how many parts do five planes* divide space? *random planes or find the maximum number of parts.