Projects

 Project Big Trees    Project Shadow    Money: Large Amounts Project

Please don't let yourself be limited by the three great project ideas below. Ways to use measurement for interdisciplinary projects are everywhere. Allow students to solve problems by challenging them to hypothesize, take actual measurements, use proportional reasoning, and draw a conclusion based on data. You may want to check out the April 2004 issue of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The issue focuses on measurement, with articles that describe class measurement activities that include developing a teaching unit based on a book about the early exploration of the Antarctic, designing a theater stage, and using length and weight to determine the meaning of the term penny nail.

Courtesy The Davey Tree Expert Company

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Project Big Trees

The next four resources can be used to support a student project that explores big trees and the mathematics related to circumference and pi. A student exploration question can be "How big is the biggest tree in our neighborhood?"

Big tree: have you ever seen a tree big enough to drive a car through? http://www.figurethis.org/challenges/c15/challenge.htm

Even if your students have never seen a tree large enough to drive a car through, they can practice using fractions and decimals and the formula for the circumference of a circle. This activity lists the girth and height of 10 National Champion giant trees and asks students to determine which of the trees is large enough for a car to drive through. MSP full record

NPR: Bushwhacking with a Big-Tree Hunter http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1539095

Some people hunt animals and others hunt for trees. In this National Public Radio story, one in a special series called Big Trees and the Lives They've Changed, visit the Olympic Peninsula and learn about the life of a big tree hunter and the death of a giant Douglas fir.MSP full record

Discovering the value of pi http://www.arcytech.org/java/pi/index.html

This online discovery lesson about pi features an applet that lets students generate diameters and circumferences of multiple circles, a page to help them analyze the diameter and circumference data, and a list of interesting facts relating to pi. To use the applet, the student chooses the diameter of a circle on the screen and rolls the circle through one complete revolution along a ruler to measure the circle's circumference. Diameter and circumference data are collected and used to determine the value of pi.MSP full record

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Project Shadow

Here is a project idea that can be huge and interdisciplinary with the science or social studies department or that can be a one-day event where students can experience practical measurement. You may want to register as part of an online worldwide one-day event to calculate the circumference of the Earth (see first resource) or simply use all the resources to put together a class activity for replicating Eratosthenes' experiment. However you choose to approach it, you can tie measurement to real life by highlighting the historical connections and relating the activity to the modern technology of global positioning systems.

The noon day project http://www.k12science.org/noonday/

This Internet site presents the necessary mathematics and science information teachers need to re-create the measurement of the circumference of the Earth as done by the Greek librarian Eratosthenes more than 2000 years ago. Shadow measurements taken at high noon local time on a designated day in March are posted online and used to calculate the circumference of the Earth. Teachers can sign up and have their students participate in this annual spring event. MSP full record

Noon Shadows on the Equinox http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/visualizations/

Here's a lesson plan that provides everything you need for an outdoor equinox activity. Students will measure the angle of the shadow cast by the midday sun on either equinox and compare it with their latitude. MSP full record

Measuring the Circumference of the Earth http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57576.html

This web page illustrates how data and mathematics were used in Eratosthenes' famous experiment. MSP full record

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Money: Large Amounts Project

Finally, how about using pennies as a unit of measure and asking big questions such as "What would the national debt look like if it were a pile of pennies—would it reach farther than the moon?" Once you start thinking in terms of using pennies, or any other size coins, to represent quantities, you may decide to start with a smaller quantity than the national debt. In any event, these web sites are a great place to begin.

The Virtual Machine Shop

The megapenny project http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp

Visit this site to begin to appreciate the magnitude of large numbers. It shows and describes arrangements of large quantities of U.S. pennies. You'll see that a stack of 16 pennies measures one inch and a row of 16 pennies is one foot long. The site builds excitement for learning the size of the mass found in one quintillion (written as a one followed by eighteen zeroes) pennies. All pages have tables at the bottom, listing things such as the value of the pennies on the page, size of the pile, weight, and area (if laid flat). All weights and measurements are U.S. standards, not metric.

The silver mile http://mathforum.org/midpow/solutions/solution.ehtml?puzzle=95

Here is a Math Forum middle school Problem of the Week that challenges students to think about the coins involved in creating a mile-long trail of silver coins. The authors include a few rules that require students to use fractions as they construct their mile using nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars, or silver dollars in specific proportions. MSP full record

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Copyright November 2004 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.