General | MathCityMap

The current Trails of the Month [there are both a Portuguese and an English version], were created in Porto, Portugal. Our MoMaTrE-Partner Ana Moura gave us an interview about the trails, MathCityMap and the ErasmusDay.

Please describe your trail. What differenciate your trail from others?

This route is located in the Romantic Gardens of Palácio de Cristal, one of the most beautiful gardens in the city of Porto. It was laid out in the 19th century and has an area of approximately 8 hectares, where we also can admire the magnificent panoramic views of the Douro river and the city. It is an almost circular route, which allow us to visit various charms of these gardens. The mathematical challenges involved run through several school levels, which intend to be inclusive to all elements of a family.

Please describe how your team presented MoMaTrE and MathCityMap on ErasmusDay. How many people tested MathCityMap?

The ErasmusDay event was publicized by some internet channels, namely those of one of the partners in the MoMaTrE project, the Polytechnic of Porto – School of Engineering, as well as in some social networks. MoMaTrE and MathCityMap were presented as, respectively, a project and an app that promote and assist in creating and conducting mathematical walks in this digital age [click here for more information]. We estimate that around 50 people participated in the city of Porto. They tested the app in groups, either in pairs of friends or father/mother and child, or in groups of students or families.

Why did you use the pirate narrative for this trail?

The option to use the narrative was to create more engagement in the younger ones, and to show the app’s versatility in the older ones.

Do you have any other commentary on MathCityMap?

MathCityMap brings together and cooks in a natural way three ingredients of our century: the digital age, the concern with the fight against sedentary lifestyle and the promotion of outdoor life, and the use of innovative teaching methods, particularly, in Mathematics.

From 31st of October till 2nd of November, the Kick-off Meeting of the Erasmus+ project Math Trails in School, Curriculum and Educational Environments of Europe (MaSCE³) took place. Being hosted by our Portuguese partners in Viana do Castelo, the participants first got to know each other, discussed about the aim and vision of the project, the first steps and milestones as well as the intellectual outputs.

The idea of the MaSCE³ project is to close the gap between “normal mathematics lesson” and Math Trails as a “special learning and teaching method”. To achieve that, we discussed many technical, conceptual and content-based ideas in order to make it easier for teachers to include Math Trails on a regular basis in their lessons.

Apart from the working phases, we also conducted the mandatory Math Trail in the beautiful city of Viana do Castelo and enjoyed traditional Portuguese food.

Exchanging ideas about the MaSCE³ project
Solving the tasks of the Math Trail
Our partners from all over Europe
Group Photo with Partners from Berlin, Lyon, Catania, Viana do Castelo, Spain, Tallinn, Offenburg and Frankfurt

More than 10.000 tasks have been created on the MathCityMap portal.

A Namibian teacher created the 10k-task during a MCM workshop last week.

MathCityMap provides tasks in more than 40 countries on all continents. Nearly 3600 users subscribed!

We are looking forward to a lot of new tasks!

This month we present a mathtrail from Indonesia. After hearing of the new MathCityMap pirate narrative, our MathCityMap educator Adi Nur Cahyono created the “Telaga Tujuh Island Adventure Trail” to discover this new feature. He gave us an interview about the new pirate narrative feature of MCM.

Why do you use the pirate narrative?

I got the information that there is an app update by adding a pirate narrative in the MathCityMap app, so I immediately searched for a route that matched this narrative. One of which is a route on the Telaga Tujuh Island. The pirate narrative makes my route look very interesting. This narrative fits perfectly with the situation, location and tasks on this route. Adventure at sea, with problems on an island that can only be reached by sailing. It’s like a real pirate, isn’t it?

How could students benefit from the usage of such a narrative?

Students know the pirate character and his adventure stories are looking for treasure. This is the same as math trails ideas. Combining the two makes students interested in exploring the trail by acting like their imaginary character and at the same time they also learn mathematics and its application.

What is the special attribute of your trail? What differentiate your trail from others?

The “Telaga Tujuh Adventure Trail” is a route located on an uninhabited remote island in the Aceh Province of Indonesia. The route is explored by sailing to find some locations and real problems relating to mathematics with pirate narrative, for example, the Ship Repairs task: “Curses! Th’ ship’s hull be breached! We need to repair it! Let us use this here tree. Can ye determine th’ weight o’ this here tree trunk in kg? 1cm³ o’ wood weighs 800g.”

While working on this trail explores discover both mathematics and nature. They learn mathematics while adventurous into the world of imagination in reality and enjoy the beautiful nature of Indonesia. Discover MathCityMap, visit Indonesia!

Good to know: Adi Nur Cahyono created the “Telaga Tujuh Island Adventure Trail” in order to discover our new pirate narrative. Therefore, the used a lot wizard tasks of this trail, because the MCM provides for each of these tasks a short story fitting to the pirate narrative.

Matthias Ludwig presents the MathCityMap project in Namibia!

At J.G. Van der Wath Secondary School Matthias Ludwig created some MathCityMap tasks with Namibian teachers during a teacher education program. One of these new tasks is “The tire”, for which students have to calculate the circumference of a semi-visible car tire.

The participants of the education program were highly interested in the MathCityMap idea – so we are looking forward to a lot of interesting task which hopefully will be created soon!

You can find photos and further information on our MCM Twitter site.

On Saturday, October 12, 2019, we celebrated the international Erasmusdays with our Erasmus + project MoMaTrE. During perfect weather, mathematical trails were conducted at the five locations in Frankfurt, Lyon, Nitra, Porto and Santander.

Together with our partners, fourteen new MathCityMap mathtrails were created for this day and these were downloaded more than 200 times on Saturday alone. This is a great success for the project. In particular, we would like to thank the DAAD for supporting this special activity.

But the main actors were undoubtedly the numerous mathtrailer and task solvers who were happy about sweets and certificates.

Did you know? From 10th – 12th October 2019, the EU celebrates the Erasmusdays. Of course, MathCityMap should not be missing as content-related basis of the Eramus+ project MoMaTrE!

Our partners in Porto, Santander, Lyon and Nitra are celebrating the Erasmusday on Saturday, 12.10.2019 at all five locations. There will be exciting mathtrail tasks to solve. For successful task solver, we have prices and certificates.

Further information about all locations can be found in the table:

Frankfurt	Goetheplatz	11am – 3 pm
Lyon	Campus de la Doua	afternoon
Santander	Doctor Madrazo Cultural Center	from 11.30am
Porto	Jardins do Palácio de Cristal	from 10am
Nitra	Svätopluk Square in Nitra, SK	from 10am

We are looking forward to many Mathtrailers!

Creating a MathCityMap task is too difficult and time-consuming? In this article we´ll introduce you to our tool “task-wizard”, which enables you to create tasks with a few clicks. In the following we´ll explain, how to use the “task-wizard”.

In all cities exist similar objects, which provide many possibilities for outdoor mathematics. For those objects, e.g. the gradient of a ramp or the mass of a cuboid stone, we prepared standardized templates in our web portal. Altogether, we arranged twenty variegated templates for the themes combinatorics, algebra (functions) and geometry.

To create a new task with our wizard, you only have to choose one of the given templates and put in a picture of the object and your measured values. As the wizard generates the sample solution and the hints (partly with pictures) automatically, the tool allows you to create a task with only a few clicks.

Step-by-step instruction:

Open the option „New task” in the MathCityMap portal
Click on the option „Wizard“.
Choose your favoured „Wizard-task” (e.g. velocity – escalator – velocity in m/s) and fill in your measured values.
Upload a picture for your task and define the geolocation, Done!

Have fun!

MathCityMap was honoured by the German competition “Land of Ideas”! The projects of the ten award winners are currently presented in a branch of the Deutsche Bank in Wiesbaden.

Next to the exhibition we created two math trails in Wiesbaden. The trail “Land der Ideen WI-kurz” is recommended for students from the sixth grade. To solve the tasks you have to discover the environment around the Marktkirche of Wiesbaden through accurate observing, measuring and counting. For users from the ninth grade we prepared the trail “Land der Ideen WI-lang”.

Check out our new MathCityMap trails in Wiesbaden. Have fun!

More posts about the “Land of Ideas” award:
– MathCityMap is one of the Landmarks 2019
– “Land of Ideas“ Team visits MathCityMap

Eighteen Mathematics Teachers at the Junior High School level in the city of Semarang have participated in MathCityMap training organized by the Department of Mathematics at the Semarang State University and Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) in collaboration with IDMI Goethe Universität Frankfurt Germany. The training began on September 4, 2019 and was held at the Mathematics Laboratory of UNNES and the environment around the UNNES campus.

In this 32-hour training, trainees received an explanation of MathCityMap, the theory of developing mobile math trails followed by outdoor practice around campus to try out existing math trails and also create new math trail tasks and routes. Each participant is also required to create at least one math trail route in city park near the school where they work.

This program aims to disseminate the results of research in the field of mathematics education by universities so that it benefits the community, especially schools. In addition, this program is also an effort to support the SmartCity program launched by the Semarang City Government.

At present, in Semarang City several MathCityMap trails are available, such as those available at the Tugu Muda Area, Simpang Lima Shopping Center, Indonesia Kaya City Park, the Old City, the Central Java Grand Mosque Area, and several other locations. Mathtrails with MathCityMap are also available at Taman Pintar Jogjakarta, Kota Padang Sumatera, Kota Palu Sulawesi, Telaga Tujuh Island Aceh, and several other cities.