I spent the morning working with my colleague at IMIS , the research institute where we work, on a concept for a math rally. The idea for a math rally originated from a math teacher’s comment about how children nowadays are unaware of their surroundings, such as numbers, geometrical forms, or mathematical formulas.
This comment supports my experience last year in a 3-D project where 13th graders were supposed to create a 3-D representation of their school. At the beginning of the project, the students didn't know how big one room was in comparison to another, how to approximate the size of a room (e.g. measure how big your step is and then "walk" the room), or what proportions, let alone architectural characteristics.
In this project, Math Rally, the 5th and 6th-grade students will have to discover their school as a collection of mathematical paradoxes, parameters and challenges. Example 1: the school auditorium will be changed into a swimming pool. How many cubic meters of water would fit in it, and how much will it weigh? Example 2: the windows on the west side of the school have to be replaced. How many sheets of glass, each 2 square meters, must the contractor order?
The questionnaire is created on PCs and then transferred later for the rally on PDAs. The questionnaire will, hopefully, be produced by a grade 10 or 11 math class. What we need is a math teacher willing to take the lead on the project. My university students and I usually do too much work on these projects. Ideally, it is the students and teachers who are supposed to surge ahead.
