1. Calculating Change
The 60-minute program includes interviews with Ellen Ochoa, a Hispanic female astronaut, and Vice President Al Gore, plus on-location reports on five innovative programs across America. A youth services director in Lorain, OH, works with gang members and uses a pool table to teach them basic math while helping them develop self-confidence. A mother in Reston, VA, invents a colorful shapes-and-patterns game to teach geometry and other advanced math concepts in an after-school program. Bob Moses and David Dennis, former '60s voting rights activists, today focus on teaching African American students math skills and confidence through the Algebra Project. A New York City class learns fractions, ratio, proportion, and geometric principles while designing and building models of a housing project. Elementary students on the Isleta Reservation in New Mexico test the water of the Rio Grande to learn about the interdependency of life forms on earth.