Linking math and technology
NOW I remember why I usually don’t start the year off with Geometry, but we are through the basics – area, perimeter and a little volume. When we revisit it later in the year all the students will have been through their tech classes and had some hands on activities with geometry, so hopefully it will go much smoother.
On with the rest of the year, Tech students will start building the 2nd greenhouse with our “Future Act” students. Future Act is a Group of students that volunteer for various charitable activities in the community. They will also start working on learning about Solar panel use – they will build a solar panel car and test it, along with other activities Wes Hill will discuss in his blogs.
In math we will start to gather information from Tech to use throughout the year. The info the student’s record with their solar panel activities I will incorporate in the math lessons. Based on last years “Wind Turbine” project some of the concepts we will be able to incorporate from this years Solar Panel project into math are – mean, median and mode, percentage, ratios, rates, scaling, fractions, decimals and percents. With the solar panels and greenhouse we will also incorporate area, perimeter, and volume.
What I will do with each concept is use the Solar Panel project as a reference for what the students are going to do or what they have all ready done. Either way they have a practical application for the math they are learning. I’ll keep you informed to know what worked and what didn’t work.
