1. Measuring up
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 5:45 pm
Written by: Terese Herrera
“Middle school teachers tell us that there are important practical skills and understanding that students need before they engage in the abstractions of algebra. These skills are found in the blurry area where measurement, basic geometry, and the arithmetic of decimals and fractions come together in the real world. To move forward mathematically, middle school students need hands-on experiences with measuring, using scale and proportionality, and estimating with benchmarks.
A class measurement project can wrap together many important components of mathematics learning into a very memorable experience. Who can forget measuring their school gym to see how many pennies it could hold or finding the volume of the community swimming pool to see how many ping-pong balls it would take to fill it? A class measurement project allows students to first make choices about which tools and units to use, and then to do the measuring, use the data to find an answer, and communicate results. They apply measurement skills and concepts to solve everyday questions that can involve estimation, decimals, fractions, and proportional reasoning. A solid foundation in measurement in the middle school years enables students to think about their world in quantitative, geometric terms and see the usefulness of mathematics.”
(Attributed to Judy Spicer, Mathematics Education Specialist at the Ohio Resource Center, from her online publication on Measurement: Sliced and Diced at http://msteacher.org/epubs/math/math1/math.aspx)
Have you found measurement projects that your students enjoyed?
Posted in Topics: Education, Mathematics
- Sign In
Related Links
Expert Voices Pre-Beta Version
Powered by WordPress MU.
When I taught math at a career center, we had a great project using measurement. We handed students an actual blueprint of a sawhorse and told the students to build it. That was all the info they were given. Students then had to ask good questions on how to measure, how to make a proportion, how to do this and that… which led to many great mathematical lessons for them to complete the project.
For middle school this could be used by giving students a blueprint of some basic structure and asking them to build a model of it. Students could use cardboard and glue but would have to figure out a good scale and do a lot of measuring. It too could lead to some great math lessons.
I love the projects where there are as little directions as possible and a goal to be achieved. Then when students start asking questions… you get many teachable moments.
I couldn’t agree more with the project approach! So often our traditional approach to teaching measurement focuses on textbook exercises and formulas. However, without actually measuring things in the real world, measurement really has no utility.
One of my favorite activities with students it to have them make art projects with exact specifications. One year they made picture frames. They had instructions with specific measurements for the outside and inside dimensions. All supplies were provided, but there was enough variety to allow for creativity as well (if all frames looked exactly alike, the students would just copy one another and the measurement would disappear). They were not shown the actual picture that was to fit into the frame until after the project was completed. Then we could tell if the inside measurement was correct simply by looking at how the picture fit into the frame. It was fun, relevant, easy to prep, and yet challenging for the kids. They were so engaged in the project that they were actually surprized when we analyzed all of the math they used from fractions to geometry to proportions!