Sunday, April 10, 2011 Lethbridge
5:25 am tag: Morning Musings
It only takes a minute to set up these pages for a new day.
The temperatures are on the rise. It is +4 C at the moment and it is forecast to go to +14 today. But the wind is also forecast to rise, which will put a ripple on the surface of the lakes. I will wait until the sun comes up (so I can take pictures) and then drive over to Henderson Lake to see if there are more birds early in the morning.
Weekends may be fine for birding, but they are usually not a good time for urban geocaches as there are often children about. I may try for the cache that I failed to find a few days ago but the new coordinates are not that different from the original ones so I am not optimistic. The cache owner mentions difficulties with the coordinates jumping around on the GPS device due to the many large trees but I didn't notice this when I tried for it. Maybe I really was in the wrong spot by 10 or 15 feet.
There is a model train show in Calgary next weekend. This might be a good time to try to combine some model train time with some birding, geocaching, and photography. The Fish Creek area might be good for both birding and geocaching. Just an idea at the moment.
Another idea would be to combine geocaching and photography in the Crowsnest Pass area. And keep my eyes peeled for birds. I would like to see if there is much snow on the ground in the area and also to check on the condition of the gravel roads.
7:20 am tag: Mathematics
I have just finished a one-hour session. This time I tried working through the three examples in section 1.1 before looking to see how they were handled by the author. This is a much better learning strategy than simply following the steps as they are described. And it has the advantage of seeing the whole approach described after one has tried it, rather than just comparing the answer with one at the back of the book. The real issue is the strategy behind the solution.
I had no difficulty with the first and third examples, but I messed up the second example by not fully appreciating the nature of the problem as it was described. That in itself is a useful lesson. I still have a tendency to try to move to quickly toward a solution.
The three worked examples all emphasize the two ideas of a linear combination of vectors and the visualization of extending the ideas to include ALL possibilities.
[insert scanned worksheets here]
I am working at a very slow pace. After 2 days I am only at the end of the description for section 1.1 and I have not even tried any of the 31 problems for this section.
Two questions are surfacing.
(1) Is there much value in scanning my worksheets for this website? Answer: no.
(2) Is there much value in doing the exercises at the end of each section.? Answer: it depends. Selecting a few problems may make some sense, but in general it is too time consuming. Assuming an average of 20 minutes per problem, the 30 problems at the end of this first section would take about 10 hours. However at the end of this acitivity I am sure I would have an even better "sense" of how to think about linear combinations of vectors and of some of the nuances that can arise in special situations. A check indicates that 12 of these problems have an answer at the back of the book. I could try some of these.
The next section is on Lengths and Dot Products. I think I am ready to try this (tomorrow).
10:30 am tag: Birding
We gave birding a good try this morning but with disappointing results. Henderson Lake had about a half-dozen Red-breasted Mergansers, a few Ring-billed Gulls, a few Common Goldeneyes, and one Bufflehead. The Bufflehead was our first 2011 identification. We then drove out to Pitcher Butte but the resevoir on the edge of town was still frozen. Then over to Park Lake where the result was the same. There was also a substantial amount of snow among the trees at Park Lake. It looks like it will be another week before most of the lakes are open. Now we know.
9:00 PM tag: Literature
I continue to find time for a little reading in the early evening.
