HIT-> Middle school math projects

[Patricia Gosda <PGOSDA@VMS1.NYSED.GOV>]

Huge thanks to all LM_NETters who sent me suggestions for math activities
for middle school media centers.  I had several requests for a summary of
the answers so here it is.

Pat Gosda  (pgosda@vms1.nysed.gov)
Van Antwerp Middle School
Niskayuna, NY
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From: Eileen Woodworth Sexton <ews@tenet.edu>

I recently had a brand new ninth grade math teacher in the library and
she had some wonderful ideas.  Examples:  mathematicians, triangle,
volume, careers that involve math (computer careers, accounting, doctor,
nurse, etc.).  It worked quite well!

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From: pswartz@nslsilus.org (Penny Swartz)


When I was in a middle school, the students came in with their math teacher
to find articles on how math is used in everyday life and what's going on
with math today.  Using books and various CD_ROM programs such as SIRS,
WilsonDisc, and EBSCO they had an easy time finding things.  This could
make a great hypercard stack!  Hope this helps, Penny

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From: Pat Bartoshesky <pbarto@UDel.Edu>

I would highly recommend using a book by Hendrik Herzberg (sp.?)
entitled One Million (or perhaps A Million).  The book as 200 pages, each
with 5,000 small black dots.  One each page are several red dots, with
accompanying descriptions of the facts associated with the numbers whose
dots are red rather than black.  The research comes in having students
choose their own numbers to highlight with facts.  I apologize for a
certain hesitancy about the author's name and the title, but I DO
recommend the project.  Best of luck.

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From: Katharine Bruner <BRUNERK@TEN-NASH.TEN.K12.TN.US>

'll just throw out a few stray items I remember doing in
pre-hypercard days with a 6th grade teacher.

* Measure various dimensions of the library with one of these rolling-wheel

metric measures.  Do various problems with the acquired measurements.

* Search the catalog and then the shelves for books described as being
certain cm in size.

* Look for uses of Roman numerals in copyright dates.

* Locate magazines that use Roman numerals for volume numbers.

* Make small laminated cards with all sorts of various dewey decimal
numbers.  REquire students to put groups of 10 or 12 of these in proper
order.

* Weigh books: large and small, clay type pages vs el cheapo, etc

* Find out how long certain biographical figures lived.  More fun when
there birth and death dates are in different centuries.

* Do some percentage studies: size of 200 collection to 900s, fiction to
biography, etc.

* Search for numerical facts in an almanac for a list of states or
countries, and enter into a simple database to be ordered, printed, and
graphed.

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From: ac139@lafn.org (carlton martz)


Use your World Almanac's tables of statistics on high interest topics
like sports records, crime rates, etc. to make graphs.

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From: Barbara Goldstein <barbarag@umd5.umd.edu>

Our sixth grade teachers did a wonderful project - they chose a
career and then by book jacket showed how math was used - the students
had to research the career, find out what kinds of math operations were
used in that career, and then design a book cover made to exact measured
specifications.

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From: pitsco@pitsco.com (Christine Chiu)

You will find MANY links to this subject at this site which might help you
brainstorm.

<a href="http://usa.net:80/~pitsco/pitsco/math.html">

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From: Betty Daniels <bdaniel@FREESIDE.SCSD.K12.NY.US>

I have an 8th grade Math teacher who has done some interesting
assignments in the library that I'm sure could be used for 6th
graders also.

1. The students select an animal to research and then find out as
many mathematical facts as possible about the animal. Encyclopedias,
other Animal reference books, regular books from the collection and
Natl. Geographic's CD-ROM Mammals.(eg. weight, gestation period,
life span,etc. There's quite a few.)

2. Similar to above, but teacher has students select a famous
building or other structure and again, mathematical facts are
collected. He uses things like the Pyramids, Golden Gate Bridge,
Sears Tower, Empire State Bldg.etc. He had quite an extensive
list. I have now built up the collection in this area and it is
quite a successful assignment.

Both of these assignments end in an oral report, written report
or poster with facts stated next to picture.

3.Famous mathemeticians...a new twist that I like so much better
than just looking up information on the person was collecting the
information on the person in the form of a Resume. In other words
a student would "pretend" they were Aristotle, for example. The
teacher provided a form that he devised that enabled the students
to gather the info. that a resume would contain...educational
background, honors or achievements, type of position they were
seeking, etc.  He also had a poster he hung in the library that
was a time-line of mathemeticians and scientists. The students had
to select someone from the same time period as the person they
researched, and that scientist etc.could be used as a "reference"
for their mathemetician's resume.  Do some leg work for this one..
not every mathemetician had the necessary info. available on them.
Encyclopedia of World Biography was most helpful.

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From: Susan M Allen <smallen@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>

A couple good projects our math teachers have done are;
        1. A history of number systems using ones from the earliest
civilizations.
        2. Do a geometry project researching a theorem or law.
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From: KellerKS@aol.com

    I don't know if this will help, but last year I had an 8th grade
teacher
who assigned a project involving making charts and graphs (with some
minimal
written explanation) using statistics found in current news magazines.  We
have a district license for Microsoft Works 3.0 so the kids used that
spread
sheet to make their charts and graphs.
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From: RUTH MORMON <ruthm@nevada.edu>

      Our sixth graders do research on careers that are math related.