MathChat

Movie Math: Wake Students Up with Silver Screen Riddles

Last days of the school year … kids getting “antsy.”

Harder and harder to keep their attention … so what’s a teacher to do?

Answer:  Let the media help us with the media generation.

In my May 16 post, I pointed you to a website that showed how math is used in major motion pictures.

In this post I’d like to focus on one such reference to math in the movies, and show how you can turn it into a fun “End-of-Year” lesson.

The clip of Die Hard below has a great scene in which the Bruce Willis character needs to solve a mathematical puzzle in less than five minutes to avoid getting blown up. It’s an exciting scene, and the math is interesting.

I suggest that you first have your class watch this clip.

After watching it, review the solution with your class.
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