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Math Made Fun: Field Trips 9/20/2014 12:05:17 AM
Math Made Fun: Field Trips When it comes to math, few field trips are planned around this subject. Instead, social studies seems to bring out the most trips with visits to museums, art galleries and public parks among the chief destinations selected. If you are a math teacher and want to get your students out of the classroom, there are certain field trips you can arrange that will challenge your students’ problem-solving skills.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Take your students to a sporting event. Let them know that as they watch the game, they’ll also be responsible with learning a few things about the game. It isn’t all baseball, peanuts and soft drinks — any sporting event can have them thinking mathematically.
Baseball, for instance, can show your students how to keep score. Give them a sheet of paper for them to track every hit, error, base on ball, runs and outs. They’ll need to tally the information at the end of the game.
Students should also be familiar with the distances between each base as well as from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. They’ll also notice the home run distances prominently displayed in each outfield position, moving from left to center to right.
When you return to class, have your students draw an outline of the playing field. They should take note of shapes, distances and review their scorecard. You’ve just given them an important math lesson, one based on a very fun sporting event notes Mathnasium .
Head to the City
What are the tallest buildings in your area? When were they made? What shapes were used to design the pillars, trim and roof line?
Your student should bring their calculators with them. Use a tall building calculator to determine building height when only the number of floors is known.
Compare different types of tall buildings. Office building floors are different from residential and hotel buildings. Mix-used buildings also have varying floor heights. Compare all three, then visit the websites of these buildings to see how those calculations compare to the supplied information.
Tour a Local Factory
Factories are filled with math equations! The building itself measures a certain amount of square footage. Also, only a certain amount of that building is dedicated to the factory floor. Have your students identify the portion of the building used as the factory and pull out the square footage for offices and the common area.
A factory assembly line can help your math students understand how products are assembled as well as moved across a conveyor system. Ask the tour guide how many widgets move per minute, then have your student calculate the per hour production as well as shift and daily production numbers.
If your class has access to the warehouse, take note of how inventory is stocked horizontally as well as vertically. Provide a module where students will work with scale drawings, surface areas and maximum capacity, using shapes and equations to show how inventory is stored in a warehouse. Assign your students to small groups to work collaboratively.
Math Fun
Certainly, math problems can be solved in the class room, but it can prove much more fun to take your students on a field trip. Show them how math connects to the real world, by choosing destinations that will challenge them and build their problem-solving skills.
