President's Message - September 2006

Back to School Challenge

In hopes of making the September Gazette deadline I find myself trying to put some thoughts together in this fifth consecutive day of 30+ hot and humid July weather. Even Northern Ontario can't escape ''Global Warming''. I'll have more on this issue later in my message. As you read this I'm sure you are already overwhelmed with September activities and yet still full of energy and enthusiasm. Although the summer months are a time to recharge I know that many of our OAME members were involved in a variety of professional development activities. Kudos to all lifelong learners that took AQ courses or participated or presented some other professional development workshops. Many of you were involved in EQAO Math assessment or you may have participated in further revisions of the Grade 12 Math curriculum. Some of you, along with our friends at OMCA, were finalizing courses of study for the new Grade 11 math courses. If you haven't made use of this resource make sure to check out the OAME website and follow the links. You may have been one of those who can't say ''no'' and volunteered to do curriculum writing/planning or to create assessment tasks for your school or board. Many of you have already spent countless hours preparing for this year's classes. A big thank you to all of you that gave up some of your summer time in one form or another in order to contribute to mathematics education in your school, board or the province. The mathematics community from JK to 12 and in post-secondary institutions is engaged and very much alive in Ontario as we continue to implement our revised math curriculum.

As a follow up to my first President's Message, I encourage and challenge you to get involved in a local chapter of OAME and other math initiatives in the province. In June the Ministry of Education gave significant sums of money (over $20M) to OTF and each affiliate to be used for professional development of teachers. The OAME Executive has sent letters out to the affiliates inviting them to work with OAME in providing PD in the area of mathematics. This could be your chance to get involved. We hope to hear from them shortly. OAME would like to perhaps develop some PD that could be used for teacher in-service through local or provincial workshops. The Ministry has also increased the number of PD days by two for the 2006-2007 school year. Although these will focus on Ministry issues and initiatives, I hope these include some math in-service.

Many local OAME chapters are planning fall or winter conferences. Why not put your name in as a presenter or volunteer? For a listing of all local and OAME conferences check out the OAME website. The OAME 2007 Planning Committee is putting together a great program. Bring a co-worker with you to the Barrie conference being held in May. If you are looking to take on more of a leadership role in mathematics in your school or board, it is not too early to make a request to your board to attend the OAME Leadership Conference ''Mathematics: Making Sense of It All'' being held in Toronto February 15-17, 2007. See the details and registration form included with the September Gazette or posted on the OAME website.

Now that you have been challenged to participate in the mathematics community, I have an even greater challenge to you and fellow educators. After hearing David Suzuki's keynote address at OAME 2005 and, more recently, after seeing Al Gore's ''An Inconvenient Truth'' at the theatre this summer, I feel compelled to encourage ALL educators to educate themselves and their students about Global Warming. If we as educators do not bring this issue to the attention of our students, who will? As a teacher of mathematics, I was very impressed with all the data that was presented to support the claims that the Earth is warming. We need to bring these statistics to life in our classes. Did you know that the 10 hottest years ever recorded have all occurred in the last 14 years. I encourage you to first see Al Gore's film, keeping in mind all the data and statistics that are presented. You may prefer to read one of many David Suzuki books about our planet. Then I challenge you to incorporate some of the statistics on global warming into the data management strand in your math classes. A quick search using ''global warming'' on the net revealed many great websites. ''An Inconvenient Truth'' encourages people to visit www.planetcrisis.net for video clips and information. The BBC News has put together an on-line 6 part series called ''Planet Under Pressure'' that addresses issues pertaining to water, energy demand, population, pollution and global warming to name a few. Try www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3747724.stm or do a search using keywords ''BBC'' and ''Planet Under Pressure''. There are great past and present pictures of world sites. The US Environment Protection Agency has a great website for kids at http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/kids/. The World Resource Institute has free, not to be missed, online databases that students from Grade 5 to Grade 12 Data Management can explore at its EarthTrends site http://earthtrends.wri.org/. If any of you are involved in writing math textbooks or other math resources, I urge you to include issues around global warming. If any of you wish to share some resources or websites pertaining to global warming, please e-mail me the information and I'll try to get them posted on our OAME website.

We only have ONE planet. I hope I can COUNT on you to help save it.

Best regards,
Dan Charbonneau

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