Mathematics Education and Teaching Practice to Bring Up History of Mathematics Culture

Karasawa Toshimitsu
(University of Manchester, UK)

Abstract: This article, one of the documents about education of history of mathematics culture, discusses about sundials. There are three types of sundials, which are equatorial, horizontal, and vertical sundials. Students were taught to build an equatorial sundial and to convert the initial model into a horizontal sundial. Classes using sundials as teaching materials become the practicality of solid geometry and trigonometric function, the application of congruent triangles, and the summary of construction, and are also proved to be effective in teaching cultural history. In this paper is one part of the lecture I gave last year at the Onomichi City Municipal Junior High School Mathematics Seminar. In my lecture, I taught the teachers how to make a sundial.

Key words: mathematics education, history of mathematics culture, teaching practice