Here is a longer sample timeline from another class.

Your research may take the form of topics in the book that we did not cover, further examination of something we did, or something else related to mathematics. I encourage you to be creative and find a topic that relates to mathematics that you are interested in. I am happy to give you some suggestions of topics related to your personal interests.

Your final project will be graded based on the depth, clarity, and creativity of the explanations and mathematics in

1. your abstract (like a commercial or advertisement for your talk) presented orally in 1-2 minutes on our last day of class
2. your timeline and presentation during the final exam day. Maximum of two pages.
3. peer and self-evaluations that you will fill out that day
4. an annotated reference list (to turn in). Use many different types of sources, including scholarly references and library sources, as well as at least one book from the library or my office. Submit a separate annotated bibliography of all of the sources you used in the timeline, with annotations explaining how you used each reference in your timeline, where the pictures are originally from, whether the source is a scholarly reference, and how you obtained the reference (library, web, my office...) Use as many pages as you need for the annotated bibliography.

We will divide up the class into two research sessions. During your session, you must stand by your timeline (which will be taped to the wall) to answer questions (and your answers must demonstrate expertise of your topic). During the other session, you will talk to others about their projects and fill out peer review sheets. If you work on your project with someone else, you will each be in different poster sessions.

Bring your own beverage. If you want to bring something to share, feel free - I will provide some snacks.

References and Topic Suggestions

Websites: Websites such as the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive (O'Connor and Robertson, 2005) provide an extensive collection of articles on particular people and topics. The Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics (Miller, J, 2008) can provide history on the development as well as the first published appearance of terms. Wikipedia's history pages and Google scholar can also be useful.

Here are some sample broad topics related to past projects. I suggest you skim through Heart and Mathematics and conduct some web searches to see what peaks your interest. For your topic, you will need to narrow it down...