Category: General

How does the MathCityMap app work? How it can be used by students?

To answer those questions, we shot a short video. Prof. Dr. Matthias Ludwig, head of the MathCityMap team Frankfurt, explains in the video how the app can be used. Thanks a lot to our three actors from the Junge Mathe-Adler Frankfurt!
Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

Notwithstanding, learning mathematics outdoors is hard to imagine at the moment. We want to enable learners and teachers to use the MathCityMap system for tasks which can be solved at home. Therefore, we created some MCM@Home trails.

Today is Pi Day! Therefore, we want to celebrate the mathematical constant Pi on todays 3/14. For all fans of Pi, we created a fantastic math Trail consisting of multfarious tasks about this amazing number: “Pi – An irrational good Trail”. In that trail you will find tasks about the area of an circle (segment), the volume of a cylinder and of a truncated cone as well as the number of posters on an advertisment pillar!

For all fans of Pi, we list the first 100 digits of Pi in the following:

3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510

58209 74944 59230 78164 06286 20899 8628 034825 34211 70679

From February 13 to 14 the “Forum des mathématiques” took place in Marseille. Christian Mercat, professor at the University of Lyon and one of our European project partners (MoMaTrE and MaSCE³), ran a very successful MathCityMap workshop at the Forum: During the congress, his great math trail “Forum 2020” was downloaded more than 400 times. In addition, more than 260 individuals or groups participated in the related Digital Classroom.

Thanks a lot, Christian, for this incredible MathCityMap workshop, which took Marseille by storm!

Christian reports on the form: This is the first time a MathCityMap trail was setup in this forum. Prizes were distributed but there was no need for that in order to motivate the participants, hundreds of participants played with the app and opened a scientific eye on the campus around them, figuring out the size of the letters on top of the building, the number of red tiles in a mosaic and so on.

Background information:

“Maths pour Tous” (“Math for All in French”) is an association based in Marseille, backed up by the Aix-Marseille University. They have organised for more than 10 years numerous forums where thousands of people flock to the university or other public venues to enjoy mathematics, accounting for the largest math events in France outside Paris. It consists in Math conferences, workshops, poster sessions, held by students themselves presenting their work during the year alongside top specialists in mathematics disseminating their work to the wider public.

MathCityMap was honoured as App of the Month by the German Academy for Child and Youth Literature!

The jury explained its decision as follows: “To get to know attractions in Germany [and all over the world] by solving lifelike mathematic tasks: Students of the 4^th up to the 11^th grade have to measure the necessary values in order to work on the given tasks. The solving process is supported by hints.”

The MathCityMap team is really pleased with this award and starts very motivated in the new year!

Our new trails of the month were located in Mexico. The trails “BUAP 2” and “La ruta Azteca” were created exactly one year ago when the MathCityMap team visited Mexico for the first time. Simone Jablonski, member of the MathCityMap team Frankfurt, answered us some questions about the trails.

Why did you create those math trails? Are there special attributes of those trails?

The trail “BUAP 2” was created for a teacher training with more than 75 Mexican teachers during the TEMBI V conference at University Puebla. Our aim was to give the participants a broad insight into the possibilities of MathCityMap, so we included different geometric topics like calculation on areas, slope of a ramp and height of buildings.

The trail “La ruta Azteca” was created on a free day which we used to visit the historical Aztecs pyramids in Teotihuacán. The pyramids offer great opportunity for calculations of their area and of the slopes of their steep staircases. Especially for tourists and families, this trail offers a great opportunity to combine mathematics and historical objects.

Particularly pleasing is the fact that we were able to create the trails in Spanish. A great help was the translation of the wizard tasks by our Spanish MoMaTrE project partners. It simplifies the use of MathCityMap – especially in an international context – immensely.

Do you have any other commentary on MathCityMap?

I have worked with MathCityMap since 2017 and mostly used it from the author’s perspective. It is great how the math trails motivate students and teachers to do mathematics. Sometimes I get the chance to run a math trail myself and after the first reward with points, I can fully share this motivation!  

In the next year, the MoMaTrE project will end with the international ROSETA conference. ROSETA is the acronym for Research on Outdoor STEM Education in the digiTal Age and this topic is exactly the conference’s focus.

Invited are all members of the educational and scientific STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) community which are interested and experienced in outdoor education. Apart from interesting lectures and workshops, you have the opportunity to present and discuss own ideas and contribute to the open-access conference proceedings.

The event is organized by the Erasmus+ Project MoMaTrE and co-funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. Through this, the MoMaTrE project can cover the participants’ costs for the conference partly.

If you are interested, please visit our conference website www.roseta-conference.eu. We are looking forward to your contribution!