When television viewers tune in to the TV series "Against All Odds" this spring, they can credit PBS - and FHS math teachers Karen and Fred Longhart, in part.
The Longharts traveled to Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22-25, to help write worksheets for three PBS math TV series.
These series will also be made into videos that teachers can use in their classrooms.
"I was excited," said Karen Longhart. "I thought it was an honor to be picked."
The math worksheet writers chosen for the program consisted of the Longharts and seven teachers from around the U.S.
The group wrote the worksheets that will be combined with the PBS videos "Against All Odds," "For All Practical Purposes" and "College Algebra."
"They picked us for two reasons," said Karen Longhart. "One is that the person in charge knew us because we worked together in the summer; she knew how well we worked. And two, she knew that we had worked with the SIMMS materials and she thought we could use some of these ideas in the writing."
The Longharts were invited by Texas Instruments and PBS to "help write materials that could be used in conjunction with math videos," said Fred Longhart.
The videos cover math subjects such as use of a calculator, matrices, perspective drawings and the Pythagorean Theorem.
The team is trying to show kids a range of popular career possibilities, dealing with subjects such as virtual reality, satellite imagery, mapping of the ocean floor and computer graphics.
These fields include a lot of mathematics.
For example, one worksheet dealt with finding the distance that a subway traveled from point A to point B using the Pythagorean Theorem.
The production of the seven one-hour segments for the three series will be shown in the spring of 1998.
Said Mr. Longhart: "The objective of the videos is to get kids interested in math."