Mandelbrot Pre-reading Activity

Objectives

1. Relate Mandelbrot set to previously studied material by refreshing student knowledge of complex numbers.
2. Introduce concept of graphing complex numbers in the complex coordinate plane.
3. Engage reader's interest in text by displaying parts of the Mandelbrot set via computer program.
4. Setup home reading assignment and inform students of post-reading activity to follow the next lesson.

Procedures

The pre-reading activity will be broken down into the following activities which are calculated to take approximately 30 minutes (with a 5 minute buffer):

Review of Complex Numbers

The instructor will perform a quick whiteboard review of operations on complex numbers - in particular addition and multiplication.  Students will participate in review via class Q&A.

Estimated time: 10 minutes.

Introduce Complex Coordinate Plane

The instructor will demonstrate how complex numbers can be graphed in the complex coordinate plane.

Estimated time: 5 minutes

Display Mandelbrot Set on Computer

The instructor will go to the following website to show the students what the Mandelbrot set looks like:

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/julia/explorer.html - Julia and Mandelbrot Set Explorer by David E. Joyce

Estimated time: 5 minutes

Set Up Home Reading Assignment

The instructor will pass out the article for home reading along with a quick worksheet to be filled out by the student to demonstrate their understanding of the reading.  The students will be informed that filling out all of the answers correctly will be worth 10 points of extra credit on their homework score (this will be the post reading assignment).

Estimated time: 5 minutes