Ever had students who wondered why we always use the x as the unknown? Here’s the answer on video. It’s just a nice lesson starter or something to end a lesson with.

Maybe this is the chance to go and look for some other maths history? A great website is this one: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk Lots of things to find here. It also has ‘tweet a day’ about the mathematician of the day.

Maybe another nice idea concerning maths history is to put a quiz question on the forum of the ELO once a week and see if your students can find the answer, maybe set up a little contest? Examples on:

• http://www.quiznightchief.com/Trivia-Quiz-Questions/History-of-Math.html#scoreMark
• https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/adbell/www/Forms/histquiz.html
• http://www.ktb.net/~cct/geom/trivia1.html

Katleen Vanden Driessche (CVO Antwerpen)