Mathematical Modelling: Waves of the Tsunami

Math Modelling Productions has created a DVD which teaches some of the mathematics encountered by students in grades 11 and 12. Rather than focusing upon the mathematical details, the program aims to inspire students to want to learn the mathematics by seeing how it is applied.

Waves of the Tsunami asks the question how long did the December 2004 tsunami take to cross the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Sri Lanka. To address this problem, the program introduces

function transformations, which are used to describe a water wave as a translated and stretched sine function
tabulation, which is used to catalogue and assess data
graphing, which is used to plot data and fit functions to data
scaling, which is used to apply the mathematical prediction to the December 2004 tsunami

The program was originally released in 2006 as a DVD with chapters directing the viewer to different program segments. Here it has been compressed and subdivided so that it may more easily be downloaded from the web.

You may download the entire 97.9MB program by clicking on the image below:

Alternately, you may download individual segments of the program by clicking on each of the images below:

Modelling Transformations Data Assessment Graphing Scaling Review

size: 18MB size: 25MB size: 25MB size: 5MB size: 3MB size: 24MB

Modelling	Transformations	Data Assessment	Graphing	Scaling	Review

size: 18MB	size: 25MB	size: 25MB	size: 5MB	size: 3MB	size: 24MB

Credits

Bruce Sutherland: Producer
Amy Palmer: Director, Designer and Technician
Stephanie Devine: Narrator
Funding provided through NSERC's CRYSTAL program at the University of Alberta