Geometry: Invasion of the Polygons

This video is part of the award-winning 4-volume series The Eddie Files--a creative presentation of math concepts, courtesy of 11-year-old Eddie, an East Harlem student in acclaimed math teacher Kay Toliver's class. He takes pictures, visits people around his native New York City, collects anything his roaming, probing mind decides is relevant, and then assembles it all into his amusing and very informative "files." In this episode, Eddie learns about polygons and polyhedrons, and is assigned to "collect" them in everyday structures. A construction site, an architect's workspace, an acclaimed inventor's exhibits--they're all veritable cornucopias of polygons! We learn about the various shapes--rhombus, trapezoid, parallelogram, etc. while meeting a fascinating variety of people. Also, seeing children of various ethnicities turned on to learning in a working inner-city school is good motivation for similar classrooms. The Eddie Files is a great answer to the common question "Why do we have to learn this dumb math stuff?" Recommended. The other three titles in the series are: Welcome to Math: You Gotta Start Somewhere, Estimation: Going to the Dogs and Fractions: Any Way You Slice It. A related 4-part series, The Kay Toliver Files, is also available. Aud: E, I, J. (E. Gieschen)