Not a song, but in my math degree there would occasionally be poems (especially limericks) to help remember things. And then there's this one from Simon Singh's "Big Bang", with the obvious tune:
Twinkle, twinkle little star
I don't wonder what you are
For by spectroscopic ken
I know that you're hydrogen
Twinkle, twinkle little star
I don't wonder what you are
(There's a whole sequence of lessons on just how weird science is to unpack there.)
> This gives us insight into the two warring ideas in education. Educational traditionalism often focuses on teaching small details, but when it overdoes it, students can end up overwhelmed with disconnected, pointless facts. Educational progressivism, on the other hand, sometimes tries to leap straight to the big ideas, but when students don’t have the necessary grounding, those concepts remain abstract and lifeless.
>
> A good education understands that big ideas must be stacked on top of a solid foundation of small ones.
That is the best summary of the trad/prog divide I've read so far!
At age 41, I can still precisely sing the ditty my Algebra teacher shared with us a quarter century ago to recall the quadratic formula… Negative B! (Clap clap) plus or minus! (Clap clap clap) the square root of B squared minus 4 A C, all over 2 A! *jazz hands*
Most mathematicians would agree that this is the greatest math love song ever written: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BipvGD-LCjU
This one is perhaps too high level though - even with a bachelor's degree in math, I still don't get a few of the references.
Not a song, but in my math degree there would occasionally be poems (especially limericks) to help remember things. And then there's this one from Simon Singh's "Big Bang", with the obvious tune:
Twinkle, twinkle little star
I don't wonder what you are
For by spectroscopic ken
I know that you're hydrogen
Twinkle, twinkle little star
I don't wonder what you are
(There's a whole sequence of lessons on just how weird science is to unpack there.)
> This gives us insight into the two warring ideas in education. Educational traditionalism often focuses on teaching small details, but when it overdoes it, students can end up overwhelmed with disconnected, pointless facts. Educational progressivism, on the other hand, sometimes tries to leap straight to the big ideas, but when students don’t have the necessary grounding, those concepts remain abstract and lifeless.
>
> A good education understands that big ideas must be stacked on top of a solid foundation of small ones.
That is the best summary of the trad/prog divide I've read so far!
Looking forward to listening to the recommendations!
I think this site is where I first learned about the Lyrical Science series... it has a lot of songs indexed by topic:
https://www.songsforteaching.com/index.html
This parody is a favorite at our house:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PnKsxokB-Hw
YES! I keep bringing up how useful this is to people for me as an adult and no one has grasped it yet.
Here’s my playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCFn0TPUM1ftx2LO10CoAZrys03G26NdU&si=DW6nwju3SowUn5xr
At age 41, I can still precisely sing the ditty my Algebra teacher shared with us a quarter century ago to recall the quadratic formula… Negative B! (Clap clap) plus or minus! (Clap clap clap) the square root of B squared minus 4 A C, all over 2 A! *jazz hands*