Hands-On Math Projects With Real-Life Applications E-Book

Judith A. Muschla

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B Ed: Hands On
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 458

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, SecondEdition offers an exciting collection of 60 hands-on projects tohelp students in grades 6--12 apply math concepts and skills tosolving everyday, real-life problems! The book is filled withclassroom-tested projects that emphasize: cooperative learning,group sharing, verbalizing concepts and ideas, efficientresearching, and writing clearly in mathematics and across othersubject areas. Each project achieves the goal of helping to buildskills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making,and supports an environment in which positive group dynamicsflourish. Each of the projects follows the same proven format and includesinstructions for the teacher, a Student Guide, and one or morereproducible datasheets and worksheets. They all include theelements needed for a successful individual or group learningexperience. The projects are easily implemented and can standalone, and they can be used with students of various grade levelsand abilities. This thoroughly revised edition of the bestseller includes somenew projects, as well as fresh information about technology-basedand e-learning strategies and enhancements; No Child Left Behindstandards; innovative teaching suggestions with activities,exercises, and standards-based objectives; reading and literacyconnections; and guidelines and objectives for group andteam-building projects. Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications isprinted in a lay-flat format, for easy photocopying and to help youquickly find appropriate projects to meet the diverse needs of yourstudents, and it includes a special Skills Index that identifiesthe skills emphasized in each project. This book will save you timeand help you instill in your students a genuine appreciation forthe world of mathematics. "The projects in this book will enable teachers to broaden theirinstructional program and provide their students with activitiesthat require the application of math skills to solve real-lifeproblems. This book will help students to realize the relevance andscope of mathematics in their lives." --Melissa Taylor, middle school mathematics teacher, PointPleasant Borough, New Jersey

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Jossey-Bass Teacher

Title Page

Copyright Page

About the Authors

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About This Book

Alignment to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards

How to Use This Resource

Part One - Implementing Projects in the Math Class

Chapter One - Overview of projects in the math class

Your Role

Supporting the Standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Strategies for Problem Solving

Creating Your Own Projects

Conclusion

Chapter Two - Managing projects in your math class

Structuring Your Class

Creating and Maintaining a Positive Environment

Teaching Suggestions

Individual and Team Conferences

The Value of Cooperative Problem Solving

Organizing Teams

The Importance of Sharing

Writing in Math Class

Using Technology with Math Projects

Technology Training

Math Projects and the Internet

Conclusion

Chapter Three - Assessing math projects

Observation Logs

Checklists

Point Systems for Project Assessment

Evaluating Writing

Self-Assessment

Conclusion

Part Two - The Projects

Section One - Math and Science

Project 1 - The benefits of recycling

Project 2 - Endangered species: Can they be saved?

Project 3 - Charting your calories

Project 4 - How many calories do you burn each day?

Project 5 - It is only natural

Project 6 - Designing a flower bed

Project 7 - Buying a class aquarium

Project 8 - The school’s new lunch program

Project 9 - What is the weather?

Project 10 - A flight to Mars

Section Two - Math and Social Studies

Project 11 - A great mathematician

Project 12 - An election poll

Project 13 - Landmarks

Project 14 - Creating a scale map

Project 15 - A game: What date is that?

Project 16 - An interview to math’s past

Project 17 - Rating consumer products

Project 18 - Lands of ethnic origin: A statistical potpourri

Project 19 - A land of immigrants

Project 20 - The games people play

Project 21 - Back to the past

Section Three - Math and Language

Project 22 - Becoming the experts

Project 23 - Great debates

Project 24 - The mathematics publishing company

Project 25 - Rating math Web sites

Project 26 - Fictional numbers: Writing a story

Project 27 - A mathematical autobiography

Project 28 - Puzzling

Project 29 - Lending a math hand

Project 30 - Sharing the math word

Project 31 - Keeping a math journal

Project 32 - Math portfolios

Section Four - Math and Art and Music

Project 33 - Making a math poster

Project 34 - Creating a logo

Project 35 - I wanna be like Escher

Project 36 - The Plus and Minus comic strip

Project 37 - Numbers and songs

Project 38 - The math in music

Project 39 - Making three-dimensional octahedra and classroom decorations

Project 40 - Creating a greeting card for Math Awareness Month

Project 41 - The geometry and art of architecture

Project 42 - Designing a quilt pattern

Section Five - Math and Sports and Recreation

Project 43 - Choosing a membership plan at a health club

Project 44 - Equipment for the school’s workout room

Project 45 - Comparing sports superstars

Project 46 - Math and the big game

Project 47 - Your unique exercise program

Project 48 - The big dance

Project 49 - The numbers game

Project 50 - Planning a sundae party

Project 51 - Going on vacation

Section Six - Math and Life Skills

Project 52 - Making a budget

Project 53 - A floor plan of my room

Project 54 - The costs of pets

Project 55 - Maintaining a math class Web site

Project 56 - Selecting a sound system using the Internet

Project 57 - Buying a car

Project 58 - What is on the test?

Project 59 - Checks and balances

Project 60 - Math in my life: An assessment

End User License Agreement

Jossey-Bass Teacher

Jossey-Bass Teacher provides K-12 teachers with essential knowledge and tools to create a positive and lifelong impact on student learning. Trusted and experienced educational mentors offer practical classroom-tested and theory-based teaching resources for improving teaching practice in a broad range of grade levels and subject areas. From one educator to another, we want to be your first source to make every day your best day in teaching. Jossey-Bass Teacher resources serve two types of informational needs—essential knowledge and essential tools.

Essential knowledge resources provide the foundation, strategies, and methods from which teachers may design curriculum and instruction to challenge and excite their students. Connecting theory to practice, essential knowledge books rely on a solid research base and time-tested methods, offering the best ideas and guidance from many of the most experienced and well-respected experts in the field.

Essential tools save teachers time and effort by offering proven, ready-to-use materials for in-class use. Our publications include activities, assessments, exercises, instruments, games, ready reference, and more. They enhance an entire course of study, a weekly lesson, or a daily plan. These essential tools provide insightful, practical, and comprehensive materials on topics that matter most to K-12 teachers.

Copyright © 2006 by Judith A. and Gary Robert Muschla. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104-4594 www.josseybass.com

ISBN 13: 978-0-7879-8179-2 ISBN 10: 0-7879-8179-6

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.

Permission is given for individual classroom teachers to reproduce the pages and illustrations for classroom use. Reproduction of these materials for an entire school system is strictly forbidden.

Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax [phone].

Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

About the Authors

Judith A. Muschla received her B.A. in mathematics from Douglass College at Rutgers University and is certified to teach grades K-12. She has taught mathematics in South River, New Jersey, for over twenty-five years. She has taught math at various levels at South River High School, from basic skills through pre-calculus. She has also taught at South River Middle School where, in her capacity as a team leader, she helped revise the mathematics curriculum to reflect the Standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, coordinated interdisciplinary units, and conducted mathematics workshops for teachers and parents. She was a recipient of the 1990-1991 Governor’s Teacher Recognition Program award in New Jersey and was named the 2002 South River Public School District Teacher of the Year. Along with teaching, she has been a member of the state Standards Review Panel for the Mathematics Core Curriculum Contents Standards in New Jersey.

Including this second edition of Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Judith and Gary Muschla have coauthored seven math books published by Jossey-Bass: The Math Teacher’s Book of Lists (1995; 2nd edition, 2005), Math Starters! 5- to 10-Minute Activities to Make Kids Think, Grades 6-12 (1999), Geometry Teacher’s Activities Kit (2000), Math Smart! Over 220 Ready-to-Use Activities to Motivate and Challenge Students, Grades 6-12 (2002), Algebra Teacher’s Activities Kit (2003), and Math Games: 180 Reproducible Activities to Motivate, Excite, and Challenge Students, Grades 6-12 (2004).

Gary Robert Muschla received his B.A. and M.A.T. from Trenton State College and taught in Spotswood, New Jersey, for more than twenty-five years. He spent many of his years in the classroom teaching mathematics at the elementary level. He has also taught reading and writing and is a successful author. He is a member of the Authors Guild.

He has written several resources for teachers, among them The Writing Teacher’s Book of Lists (1991; 2nd edition, 2004), Writing Workshop Survival Kit (1993; 2nd edition, 2005), English Teacher’s Great Books Activities Kit (1994), Reading Workshop Survival Kit (1997), Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 4th Grade Level (2002), Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 8th-Grade Level (2002), and Ready-to-Use Reading Proficiency Lessons and Activities, 10th-Grade Level (2003), all published by Jossey-Bass. He currently writes and serves as a consultant in education.

For Erin

Acknowledgments

We thank Michael J. Pfister, assistant superintendent of South River Public Schools, Kevin W. Kidney, principal of South River High School, Paul J. Coleman, assistant principal of South River High School, Geraldine Misiewicz, math supervisor, and our colleagues for their support of our writing.

Thanks also to Steve D. Thompson, our editor, for his support of our efforts to complete this second edition.

Special thanks to Caroline Fitzgerald and Geri Priest, who read the original manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions, to Jamie Egan for helping us better understand the mathematical aspects of music, and Colleen Duffey Shoup as well as Dover Clip-Art for the illustrations.

We greatly appreciate the help and encouragement of Susan Kolwicz, whose advice on the first edition enabled us to take our rough ideas and fashion them into a practical resource for teachers.

We are indebted to Sonia Helton, professor of education at the University of South Florida, for her insightful recommendations for the projects in this book.

We want to thank our daughter, Erin, who read the first draft of this new edition from the perspective of a young math teacher and caught several oversights and omissions.

And finally, we thank our students. In the end, they are why all of us are in this business.

About This Book

Appropriate for grades 6 through 12, Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Second Edition consists of two parts: Part One focuses on implementation and management, and Part Two contains sixty projects for your students. The projects support the Standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), as well as meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act that call for project-based learning, problem-solving strategies in mathematics, and the integration of technology in the classroom.

The new edition of this book retains the valued features of the first edition, while updating its relevance and extending its scope. All of the projects have been revised to reflect current trends, numerical data have been redone, and information on the use of technology has been greatly expanded. For many projects, students will use the resources of the World Wide Web to obtain information that they then use to solve the problem the project presents. Some projects have been replaced with new projects that hold greater applications for today, including Project 25, “Rating Math Web Sites,” Project 55, “Maintaining a Math Class Web Site,” and Project 56, “Selecting a Sound System Using the Internet.”

The new edition, like the original one, is designed for easy implementation. Each project stands alone and may be used with students of various grade levels and abilities, providing teachers with great flexibility for instruction.

To prepare students for the demands they will face in the workplace, math teachers must provide a classroom environment where students are challenged to solve real-life problems, where they may collaborate and share ideas, where they use calculators and computers, where they express their thoughts orally and in writing, and where they recognize that mathematics is not an isolated subject but is connected to other disciplines. The projects in this book will help you to achieve these goals.

Alignment to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards

The following table indicates the NCTM Standards addressed by the projects of this book. Checks indicate the specific standards with which each project aligns. For some projects, skills will vary depending on the material students create for the project.

How to Use This Resource

Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Second Edition is divided into two parts. Part One, “Implementing Projects in the Math Class,” contains three chapters devoted to classroom management. Part Two, “The Projects,” offers sixty math projects designed to enhance your math program.

Before assigning any of the projects, we recommend that you read through Part One in its entirety because the information it provides will help you to implement project activities in your class. After reading Part One, you may select those projects in Part Two that best support your program and satisfy the needs of your students.

In Part One, Chapter One provides an overview of how to incorporate math projects in your class, Chapter Two details a variety of specific classroom management techniques and suggestions, and Chapter Three offers several methods for evaluating the work of your students. Each of the chapters includes several lists that summarize information for various topics, making it easy for you to find the information you need. For example, you will find that your role expands when projects become part of your program. “The Teacher’s Role During Math Projects” outlines the many tasks you may assume when your students are engaged in project work.

Each chapter of Part One also includes several reproducibles for students that can be helpful in establishing the routines necessary for successful project work. For example, it is possible that many students may not have had much experience in working cooperatively to solve a complex problem. Distributing copies of “Rules for Working in Math Teams” highlights the behaviors that characterize effective teams. Knowing what is expected of them helps students to behave appropriately and achieve the goals you set out for them.

Part Two contains sixty projects divided into six major sections:

Section One, Math and Science Section Two, Math and Social Studies Section Three, Math and Language Section Four, Math and Art and Music Section Five, Math and Sports and Recreation Section Six, Math and Life Skills

Although the breakdown is useful for planning interdisciplinary units or finding a project that ties in to another subject, each project stands alone. Each may be used to introduce, enhance, or conclude a unit or topic, or be used as a challenge, enrichment, or extra credit. Some projects may be used as ongoing activities—for example, Project 31, “Keeping a Math Journal,” or Project 32, “Math Portfolios.” Project 24, “The Mathematics Publishing Company,” shows students how to create and produce a mathematics magazine, which you may decide to publish regularly throughout the year.

Each project follows the same format. Information for the teacher is presented first: background, goals of the project, math skills that are covered, special materials and equipment that are needed, and development. This material is followed by the Student Guide, which provides strategies and suggestions on how students may solve the problem the project presents. Data sheets and worksheets provide students with additional information or a specialized work space. The student guides, data sheets, and worksheets, which are numbered according to each project, are reproducible for your convenience.

We suggest that you use this book as a resource, selecting projects you need to enhance your curriculum. The sixty projects offer a variety of real-life situations that will help your students to realize the relevance math has in their lives, while at the same time applying specific mathematics skills.

We trust that you will find this book to be a helpful resource as you encourage and support your students in their efforts to learn math. Our best wishes to you.

Part One

Implementing Projects in the Math Class

Chapter One

Overview of projects in the math class

In a well-run math class, computation, problem solving, and critical thinking are all taught. Instead of learning skills in isolation, students learn math in context where they can see how it is applied in real situations. In this way they come to recognize the importance of math in their own lives. The connection between math and the real world is a strong one. This is especially true of math classes in which projects are a significant part of the curriculum.

Filled with activity and enthusiasm, a successful project-oriented math class is a center of individual learning, collaboration, cooperation, and sharing. Students work alone, together, and with the teacher. Along with learning fundamental math skills, students learn to think logically, analyze data, make decisions, and solve multifaceted problems that arise out of real-life situations. Students thus use the skills they are learning in meaningful ways.

Your Role

Your role changes when your students work on math projects. Along with your traditional responsibilities of introducing concepts, demonstrating skills with example problems, and grading the work of your students, you will become a facilitator and promoter. The horizons of your teaching will expand. More of your time will be spent working directly with individuals and groups. As students work on solving problems, you will circulate around the room, offering advice and suggestions, asking questions that lead to insights or direction, and giving encouragement and praise. Sometimes you may simply monitor a group’s efforts or model appropriate behavior. Occasionally you may need to pull a group back on task. (See “The Teacher’s Role During Math Projects.”)

There are many ways you can incorporate projects into your curriculum. While following your text, you can easily provide regular project activities. You may build time for projects into your schedule, for example, a day or two each week, or do units on projects a few times a year. Some teachers introduce a multistep project and then give students time to work on it at the end of class over the next few days. No matter how you provide the time, you should be consistent. Students not only need sufficient time for working on projects, they need to know when they will be working on them. This information enables students to come to class prepared and ready to work.