We have designed and classroom tested many activities that you can use along with this textbook. In order not to give away the things that students are expected to discover during these activities, each activity appears in the book only as a prompt that self-study students or students who must miss a class can use on their own to mimic the experience of the in-class activity. In the subsequent section of the book is a short summary of the things we would hope a student would learn from the activity, but not a solution to the activity.
Calculating Line Elements in Cylindrical and Spherical Coordinates: Instructor's Guide
An activity that goes along with this section of the book is:
The whole approach of this book to vector calculus uses $d\rr$ as the central geometric concept. This object is common in physics treatments of the subject, but not in math treatments. If you are a physics teacher, you will need to spend more time on this activity than you expect. It will probably be a totally new thing to your students. But, the payoff in a unified understanding of vector calculus is potentially huge. You will make up the time later!
Note: The activities are part of a separate website. If you click on the link above, you will need to use the “Back” button to return here.
