| This Kidproj project ended in 1998.
|
When most of us think about math, we think about it
as a subject taught in school, outside of the context of our day to day
lives. But in truth, math is a fundamental part of our everyday lives.
Students participating in the Math Around Us project will explore different
ways to look at math in the real world.
Project Moderators:
Laurie Williams
Larissa Sato Dias
Duration of the Project:
Math Around Us will run from October to the
end of June. Because it is made up of different activities to be introduced
one per month, you can participate in all or part of the project, whichever
best fits your needs. Each month, we will introduce a new activity.
For open-ended activities, you can begin to send information
to the KIDPROJ list any time after the announced start date and up until
the end of June.
Participating in the Project:
All participants must follow guidelines
established for joining in on KIDPROJ projects.
Student work is to be posted on KIDPROJ, while any teacher
discussion of the project will occur on KIDPROJ-COORD.
Participants must register
to participate the project. Read through the activity summaries and choose
which activities you'd like to join in on. Fill in the registration form
below.
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Math Around Us Projects
Click on the icon to read more about the project
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Title: Math Curse Revisited
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Start Date: October 1
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End Date: Open throughout duration of project.
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Summary: In Jon Scieszka's book, Math Curse,
a little girl wakes up feeling she's been cursed...a "math curse", because
everywhere she looks, everything she sees, everything that happens to her...she
sees as some sort of math problem, because her teacher has told her "YOU
KNOW, you can think of almost everything as a math problem."
For example, when she looks in her closet, she sees that
she has "...1 white shirt, 3 blue shirts, 3 striped shirts, and that 1
ugly plaid shirt that Uncle Zeno sent me." She then ponders the following
questions:
1. How many shirts is that all together?
2. How many shirts would I have if I threw away that
awful plaid shirt?
3. When will Uncle Zeno quit sending me such ugly shirts?
FOR OUR PROJECT---The teacher shares the story with their
class. Kids then think of their next day "mathmatically"...seeing how many
ways they can find math problems creeping up on them throughout the day.
On the list, they'd share *their* "math curse" days.
Answers
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Title: Math in Careers
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Start Date: November1
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End Date: Open throughout duration of project.
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Summary: Students interview different professional
people...ie folks with jobs (including homemakers) and find out how they
use math in their fields...to help show that the math you learn now *will*
be relevant to your future. Interviews would be shared on the list.
Answers
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Title: Personal Measurement
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Start Date: December1
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End Date: Open throughout duration of project.
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Summary: Using either metric or standard forms of
measurement (for example-weight, length, temperature), students develop
their own equivalents. For example, 1 pound =1 cantaloupe. That way, we
can compare the two systems of measurement, and also give the kids some
jumping off point of reference for estimation.
Answers
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Answers
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Title: Math in the News
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Start Date: February1
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End Date: Open throughout duration of the project.
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Summary: Students review headlines for a week, looking
for math in the news. When they find a headline that has some correlation
to math, they are to analyze it:
Could it be an actual amount, or is it an estimate?
What "kind of math" is it?-For example: ratio, percent,
area, volume, length, weight, rank, cardinal number-indicating quantity,
ordinal number-position in a series.
They would then send something like this to KIDPROJ:
Headline: "Party peace No. 1 in GOP chief's eye"
Date: August 1, 1997
Newspaper: Austin American Statesman
Estimate or actual: actual
Purpose: rank
Restate it without numbers: Party peace main focus of
GOP chief.
Answers
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Title: Wait a Minute!
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Start Date: April1
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End Date: Open throughout duration of the project.
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Summary: Students come up with things that you can
do in...or that last for 60 seconds.
Answers
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We're Coming For a Visit
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Title: We're Coming for a Visit
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Start Date: May1
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End Date:Open Through Duration of the Project
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Summary: Students plan a summer vacation trip to visit. Each student in the class chooses their favorite city to visit. What route will you take to get to each city? What will your total mileage be? (Students should work to find the shortest route that will include each city.)
Send the following information to the KIDPROJ list:
- Cities to be visited in the order they will be visited.
- Total mileage
Answers
|Register
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This page is posted by Michele Flores-Ward, and was last
updated on Aug 23,1998. g78altpr@northnet.org
Information Contact: Patti
Weeg, Title 1 Computer Teacher, Delmar El. School, Delmar, Maryland,
USA. Home Page: http://www.globalclassroom.org
KIDPROJ WWW Contact:
Grant Dougall and
Diane Smith
Go to the KIDLINK Home Page 
Return to KIDPROJ
Projects Page
KIDS-98, the KIDLINK
name and associated logo are service marks of the KIDLINK
Society.
1. Each class decides what their perfect space will be.
