Historical Mathematicians Project

5th Grade Math

Mr. Crums Class
Choose a mathematician from the list below that you would like to research:
Thales
Pythagoras
Archimedes
Hypatia
John Napier
Galileo Galilei
Blaise Pascal
Isaac Newton
Leonhard Euler
Joseph Louis Lagrange
Sophie Germain
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Evariste Galois
Emmy Noether
Srinivasa Ramanujan

Euclid
Omar Khayyam
Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci)
Girolamo Cardano
Rene Descartes
Pierre de Fermat
Maria Agnesi
Benjamin Banneker
Charles Babbage
Mary Somerville
Neils Abel
Ada Lovelace
Sonya Kovalevsky
Albert Einstein
George Polya

There are books in both the school library, and Mr. Crums classroom
library containing some information about each of the mathematicians
above. For your project, you will seek out basic information about your
mathematician to share with your classmates during your presentation.
This project you with a number of choices in determining what you find
most interesting about the life of your chosen mathematician. As you
research the life of your mathematician, you will want to determine details of
his or her personal history and life (Where is the mathematician from? What
sort of work did the mathematician do? Did the mathematician have a
family, or any notable friends?) Other things to look for will include:
What is the mathematician known for?
How have the mathematicians discoveries been used throughout
history, and into our modern lives?
Where do we see the influence of this mathematician in what you have
learned in elementary school?
When you have completed your research you will write a brief 5paragraph essay about the mathematician. You will use the TIDE format to
assist in organizing your writing.
You will present your findings in an oral presentation to the class. The
presentation will be from 2-5 minutes in length.

Grading Rubric:
Name:

________________________________________________

Score:

___________ Research notes about the mathematician (20 points)

___________ Graphic organizer in the TIDE format (20 points)

___________ Five paragraph essay (40 points)
___________ Introduction paragraph
___________ Body paragraph 1
___________ Body paragraph 2
___________ Body paragraph 3
___________ Closing paragraph
___________ Presentation (20 points)
Total Score:
___________ Points out of 100