Math Assessment in the movies

I heard of someone who gave a speech once showing math errors in commercial movies. I've never found out who gave that speech, but I was intrigued by the idea and after seeing this humorous mathematical bit from a Ma & Pa Kettle movie, I've been on a search for more. This one I love to show teachers as an example of a great assessment item. Just show it to a fourth grader and ask what's going on to get a clear idea of their understanding of multiplication, division and....well I don't want to give it away.
Two days later: At the Asilomar CMC Math Conference and Gary Tsuruda showed this clip in his keynote. This clip is from and Abbott and Costello movie, but the math part of the script in both movies is almost identical.

Expanding Your Horizons - Math & Science for Girls

If you haven't heard of the Expanding your Horizons (aka - EYH) conferences you're missing out. These are one day conferences for girls in which women role models, from math and science related fields, do hands-on workshops with girls to inspire them to consider working toward careers in science, technology engineering, and math. I've been involved in the Mills College conference and the San Franciso State Univ. conference, but there are conferences all over the Bay Area and in most states in the country. The San Francisco EYH is coming up Saturday November 3rd, so if you know any middle school girls who would benefit from some fun inspiration in these areas, check it out here. And to find other sites around the country check with the national organization here.

A Whole School Turns Math into Magic

Here's a very inspiring video from the George Lucas Education Foundation, www.glef.org showing how Fullerton IV Elementary School in Oregon made math the highlight of their program. It takes significant professional development to create this kind of math culture, but just imagine the payoff for the students, the teachers, and the school. Their test scores soared, but more importantly, math became the favored subject of nearly all the students.