Chris Sears

Liberal Arts Mathematics

Lesson List

1. Percentage and Taxes
2. Interest
3. Consumer Loans
4. Annuities
5. Mortgages
6. Lines, Angles, and Circles
7. Polygons
8. Perimeter and Area
9. Volume and Surface Area
10. Apportionment
    • Current Apportionment for US Congress Link to Census Bureau Data
11. Huntington-Hill Apportionment
12. Other Paradoxes and Apportionment Methods
13. Voting Methods
14. Defects in Voting Methods
15. Introduction to Counting Methods
16. The Fundamental Counting Principle
17. Permutations and Combinations
18. Probability Theory
19. Complements and Unions of Events
20. Conditional Probability and Intersections of Events
21. Organizing and Visualizing Data
22. Measures of the Center
23. Measures of Dispersion
24. The Normal Distribution

EKCC Notes

Textbook Sections

• Section 6.4 Notes
• Section 10.1 Notes
• Section 10.2 Notes

Schedules

• 16-Week Schedule
• 12-Week Schedule

Projects

• Project 3 Rubric - Original Document

Official Textbook for My Classes

Mathematics All Around 6e - Tomas Pirnot (ISBN: 9780134434681)

In-the-Works Textbook

OpenStax Contemporary Mathematics - Donna Kirk (ISBN: 9781951693688)

Open Educational Resources for Liberal Arts Mathematics

The following links are to OER Commons.

• Math for Our World - Gail Poitrast
• Math Literacy in a Global Context, Revised for Lane Community College - Paula Thonney
• Mathematics for the Liberal Arts - Austin Community College, Lindsay Orlando
• Mathematics for the Liberal Arts - David Lippman
• Math in Society - David Lippman Start with this one
• Math in Society: Mathematics for liberal arts majors - Cara Lee
• Liberal Arts Mathematics - Saburo Matsumoto

KCTCS Competencies

Upon completion of this course, the student can:

1. Compare and contrast a variety of voting methods, including majority, plurality, runoff, Borda count, and pairwise methods.
2. Determine the winner of an election from a preference schedule using the methods aforementioned.
3. Solve real-world problems related to apportionment.
4. Calculate interest on investments and loans and other financial tools, including amortization schedules.
5. Calculate the probability of outcome of an event with and without replacement, combinations and permutations.
6. Apply the Law of Large Numbers to critical thinking problems.
7. Calculate and interpret basic descriptive statistical measures such as mean, median, mode, range, variance, standard deviation, and determine z-scores from a normal distribution.
8. Solve problems using basic two- and three-dimensional geometry.
9. Solve geometry problems using similarity, scalability, and Pythagorean Theorem.