John P. Crotty
The primary objective of this unit is to demonstrate, through a collection of applications, how you can effectively use bicycles to teach mathematics and science. The unit emphasizes easy to do experiments. The appendix discusses approximate numbers and significant digits.
In teaching, I try to actively involve the student. Last year, my Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminar leader Dr. William Kessen, Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics, stressed using data that was drawn from the student’s life experiences. All my students can ride a bicycle. My students and I are involved with a practical concrete object. Hopefully, the team attitude will produce a “Yes, I can” in learning the physics and mathematics of a bicycle; that the success in performing on a bicycle can be replicated in the classroom.
If you teach mathematics or science, in either junior high school or high school , you can use this unit. This unit contains applications to program in a computer class. This unit would also be helpful to anyone who is preparing for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test, as that test has sections on mathematics, general science and basic mechanics.
