Week of March 1

A lot to update for the blog. Sorry for the delay-as most of you know I've been struggling with some health issues the past two weeks and I let the blog slip during that time.

Big news is that the seniors will be leaving this Friday for their Senior trip to China. Chaperones will be Mr. Adkinson, Mr. Deen, Ms. Tai, and Ms. Yu. Students will be gone from this Friday to the following Friday. Lots of historical sites will be visited as well as a meet and greet with a Chinese high school-giving each set of students a chance to practice their second language.

Two weeks ago, TGA music students wowed us with their recital. Students played piano, violin, trumpet, and sang. They also told us a little about the music/composer of their piece. It just went to show that we are more than math/science students here at TGA-we have students that are multi-talented!!!

This Tuesday evening, the Knox Co chapter of the UT alumni association are hosting the juniors of TGA as well as top juniors from other local high schools at an honors dinner. UT wants top students to know that they recognize their hard work-as well as plug UT as a college destination. Students will have an opportunity to learn more about the UT honors program while enjoying a nice dinner at the Knoxville Convention Center.

The nine weeks ends this Friday-report cards will be mailed over spring break.

Finally-here is what is going on in classes this week:

This week in Calculus II we will continue our look at series, working our way toward a major application of the concept: Taylor series. Throughout much of applied mathematics Taylor series are used to approximate functions in a wide variety of settings.

This week in Matrix Algebra we will have our exam on Monday over Lines and Planes in 2-space. As we continue on, we will begin our look at n-dimensional space. Many of the concepts we learned about in 2-space will have an analogue in n-space. We will quickly see that visualizing the concepts is no longer something we can count on when we move to 4-dimensions and higher!

In ODE:
Monday: Students will be taking the Midterm test.
Tuesday: Students will read up on Nonhomogenous ODE's with Method of Undetermined Coefficients.
Thursday: We will look into variation of parameters
Friday: We will look into qualitive aspects of nonelinear ODEs.

In Cal I
Tuesday: We will finish up on adding links to the chain rule.
Wednesday: We will look at Implicit Differentation
Thursday: We will look over derivatives of logs
Friday: We will look at numerical or linear approximations to differentials.

Physics A is studying Electricity, with specific emphasis on Resistors. Test on Thursday.
Physics C is studying Thermodymamics, with emphasis on work and heat engines. Quiz on Friday.

In English this week- Juniors: Cannery Row and Seniors: Heart of Darkness and final!

This week in U.S. History, we will study the 1920s, and we will wrap up our study of Knoxville and the U.S. in the early modern period. There will be an exam on Thursday, covering the material since the last exam.

Mandarin I - We will review the courtesy/welcoming words and conversation related to entertaining friends. This week we'll also learn how to make requests.

Mandarin II - This week, we will work on our presentations for our visit to Tsinghua University High School in Beijing. Also, we'll review travel dialogues, dining etiquette and using of chopsticks.