Silicon Forest Maths

We’ve known for a long time, here in the Silicon Forest, that high school maths (using the UK’s plural form) needs to converge with coding, as in computer programming. Below, we see what that looks like learning Julia:

Figure 1: high school desktop

Allen B. Downey, a co-author of Think Julia, is likewise an author of Think Python. It’s not either or with these languages, plus we’re allowed to dabble without committing to attaining mastery. “Try before you buy” is a good policy more generally, i.e. curricula need their intro versions, with further ladder rungs for those choosing (voluntarily) to climb.

If you’re already convinced by the Oregon Curriculum Network approach, one of many, then you already know about our focus on the Crystal Ball Sequence, which relates to the animated GIF below:

Figure 2: 1, 12, 42, 92…

This is the sequence we’re implementing in the Julia language in Figure 1. There’s the nuclear ball, then 12 around it, then a layer of 42, then another layer (of 92) and so on. You’ll find it listed in the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) as A005901 (you’ll see my name in the links section) but that’s not yet the sequence in question. The Crystal Ball Sequence (CBS) is the cumulative version, i.e. 1, 13, 55, 147… per the numbers printed in the REPL (explained below).

Figure 3: 1, 13, 55, 147…

The CBS describes a growing ball packing pattern known as the CCP to crystallographers, among others into STEM.

Lets define our acronyms before going further, to remove ambiguity:

CCP = Cubic Close Packing (a specific dense packing of balls) CBS = Crystal Ball Sequence (1, 13, 55, 147…) REPL = Read Evaluate Print Loop (conversational shell) STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics OCN = Oregon Curriculum Network

When learning Python or Julia or other interactive language, you have the benefit of a REPL, meaning a place to enter expressions and/or statements at a prompt, to get results. Not every language comes equipped with such a console. Python and Julia both do, and as such, are also suitable for interactive use through Jupyter Notebook type web applications.

Am I saying that Silicon Forest maths make using of Jupyter Notebook type applications? Of course that’s what I’m saying. I wouldn’t be able to give you a run-down by school. My role as a curriculum developer is to be the experimentalist, with willing guinea pigs who are also sometimes co-developers.

We experiment on one another in this business. We’re not doing physically invasive medical procedures and do not require state oversight at the workshop level. In the case of OCN, We’re a private sector commercial business, not an arm of the state.

The name Jupyter even derives from Julia and Python, as well as R, as these were three of the original kernel languages using this literate programming platform.

Ergonomics has become a front and center concern, in connection with providing students with facilities closer to what a code school might offer. Many of them will opt for code schools after high school as it is, having been priced out of the market and seeing where debt financed education often leads. The risk to benefit ratio varies, geographically. The code school option is still somewhat esoteric in many districts.

The OCN has its own “out there” version of a mathematics curriculum that bears little resemblance to anything on tap today, which is by design. Teachers are free to sample our assortment, cherry pick, and adapt. Only a tiny minority might experiment with a fuller implementation of the four faceted *Digital Mathematics Curriculum: Heuristics for Teachers*.