Category: General

We are very pleased to welcome the technical high school for economics, graphics and communication from Brixen (Italy) as a new MathCityMap partner school. Two exciting trails have been created by both teachers and students, which are being used by many classes with great pleasure.

“The “MathCityMap” concept was presented and tested at a training event in South Tyrol. Teachers from our school also took part and immediately liked this way of teaching pupils mathematics outdoors, using concrete objects. Our first trail was created by Prof. Grünfelder and was immediately put to good use by the specialist group. The students were enthusiastic and clearly enjoyed measuring, trying out and discussing. A second trail was therefore developed, this time together with pupils in a cross-class project. Based on their experience with MathCityMap trails, the pupils came up with suitable tasks on objects in and around Brixen Cathedral Square. After the trail was published, the group of pupils took on the task of accompanying various classes from our school as they tried out the trail.”

The two trails have already been downloaded a total of 336 times and can be found under the following codes:

Math at Brixen Cathedral Square (code: 061583)

Math at Millander village square (code: 68678)

The package with the official partner school badge and the MCM measuring instruments has already been delivered and we are looking forward to receiving more applications from all over the world.

All further information on the partner school programme and the requirements for application can be found both in the article on the first MCM partner school and on the homepage of our MaSCE³ project.

We are delighted to welcome two new partner schools in Slovakia. Palárikovo Primary School and Mirka Nešpora Primary School have each created three trails – for the fifth, sixth and seventh grades.

Teacher Ľubica Pereiová told us in a short report how she got started with MathCityMap:

“We organised maths parcours in our school. We started with maths trails in the classrooms. Then we tried to do maths trails outside. We created 20 tasks around the school. We will continue with the maths trails. The pupils enjoyed working with the app. They repeated what they had learnt on the trails during the year. “

The trails can be found here: 2919596, 2520835, 4620836.

Teacher Michaela Pukáčová also told us about her experience with MathCityMap so far:

“The first trail entitled “Fractions at Mirka Nešpora Primary School – Interior” (code: 2817928) includes 7 tasks located in the interior of our school. The second “End-of-the-year trail 6” (code: 2321731) and the third “End-of-the-year trail 7” (code: 0421732) focus on summarising the curriculum for the 6th and 7th grades and allow students to apply their acquired knowledge in practice. More than 70 students from the 6th and 7th grades participated in these mathematical trails. The pupils enjoyed this unusual lesson, they had fun and improved their mathematical knowledge in practical situations. These trails brought a new dynamic to the lessons and helped the pupils to better understand and appreciate the importance of maths in everyday life.”

Below you can gain an insight into the special MathCityMap lessons at the two schools:

We are also very much looking forward to more exciting trails and tasks!

The packages with the official partner school badge and the MCM measuring instruments are already on their way to the schools and we are already looking forward to receiving more applications from all over the world.

All further information on the partner school program and the requirements for the application can be found in the article on the first MCM partner school as well as on the homepage of our MaSCE³ project.

Last month, the trail with the most downloads came from the Ceibal mathematics department (Ceibal is a Uruguayan initiative to implement the “one laptop per child” model for the introduction of information and communication technologies in primary and secondary schools1) in Uruguay. The trail is called “Problemas STEAM geolocalizados” and can be found under the following code 4520262. Those responsible, Analí da Silva and Verónica Campanella, told us how the trail came about and what is behind it:

“The idea for this trail emerged as a collaboration between two members of the educators’ team aiming to integrate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) concepts into outdoor learning environments. We aimed to create an interactive and engaging experience that would challenge students to apply their mathematical skills in real-world contexts.
To develop the trail, we carefully selected locations within our community that offered interesting geometric features, architectural elements, or natural phenomena suitable for posing mathematical problems. We then designed a series of challenges and activities that required students to use mathematical reasoning and problem-solving strategies to complete.
Throughout the development process, we collaborated with local experts in various fields, including mathematics, architecture, and environmental science, to ensure the accuracy and educational value of the trail.”

We are very happy about such a great and intensive engagement with the local environment and mathematical aspects and are already very excited to see what other interesting trails there will be in the future.

The following pictures give an insight into the places where the trail tasks are located:

The Pavol Demitru Primary School and Kindergarten (Základná škola s materskou školou Pavla Demitru) is our newest and twelfth partner school in Slovakia. We are very pleased to welcome them and look forward to working with them.

The teacher Kristína Čierniková has created two exciting trails in cooperation with the University of Constantine the Philosopher. The first trail “Námestie Matice slovenskej” (Code:  1620472) (translated: Square of the Slovak Matrix) contains 10 tasks that were created at the Square of the Slovak Matrix in the Trenčín region.

The second trail “Po stopách histórie mesta Dubnica nad Váhom” (Code: 3620281) (translated: On the traces of the history of Dubnica nad Váhom) allows you to explore many historical monuments of the town of Dubnica nad Váhom in a mathematical way.

The Math Trails were carried out with over 40 5th, 8th and 9th grade students. The children had a lot of fun and the following photographs provide an insight into the lessons:

We are also very much looking forward to more exciting trails and tasks!

The packages with the official partner school badge and the MCM measuring instruments are already on their way to the schools and we are already looking forward to receiving more applications from all over the world.

All further information on the partner school program and the requirements for the application can be found in the article on the first MCM partner school as well as on the homepage of our MaSCE³ project.

It’s finally starting! On Friday, June 14, 2024, the opening match between tournament host Germany and Scotland will take place in Munich. A little later, the strong national teams from England, Spain and Portugal will also start the tournament. Group D will be particularly exciting, with the Netherlands, insider tip Austria and Poland competing alongside top favorites France.

Regardless of the outcome of the tournament, the European Championship will be the topic of discussion in the coming weeks! On our partner website fussballmathe.de, the team led by Prof. Dr. Matthias Ludwig (Goethe University Frankfurt) provides you with a wealth of information and materials for your mathematics lessons:

• Do you know how you can (approximately) construct a soccer ball from 24 congruent kite squares?
• How you can use the path rule to predict the probability of your national team reaching the round of 16?
• Are you familiar with the birthday paradox and do you know what it has to do with EURO 2024?

You can find answers to these and many other questions at fussballmathe.de. You will also find our prediction of who will win the tournament.

We are looking forward to a great tournament in Germany under the motto “United by football. United in the heart of Europe”!

This month, the trail “MATEMARDIKA ZOO-A” (code: 2416904) was downloaded over 180 times. It has thus surpassed all other trails. The trail was created in Semarang, Indonesia, and contains 5 tasks. These were created in the Semarang Zoo in a tourist area to commemorate Indonesia’s 78th Independence Day.

MATEMARDIKA is a combination of the words matematika (mathematics) and mereka (you/them). The trail in honor of Indonesia’s 78th Independence Day is to invite people to celebrate the day in a mathematical way, support Semarang Smart City and implement mathematics education in the real world, as well as introduce the tourist destinations of Semarang city.

Since 2013, the city of Semarang has had a smart city concept, through which various information technologies are to be implemented and realized in the city. In 2019, the city of Semarang was recognized by the Ministry of National Development Planning as the best city in the Development Awards. The acronym BE SMART CITY stands for “Based on E-gov, Semarang More Accountable, Realistic and the Transparent City”.

One task from the trail shows how wonderfully the creators of the trail have linked information about the zoo and the surrounding area with mathematical content:

“Semarang Zoo is not only a place to conserve animals, but also has numerous parks. The gardens are designed to support the comfort of visitors. In the play area, there are seats built around cute cow puppets. The seats are also used as large pots with shade plants or ornamental plants. The seats are large enough to accommodate several people at the same time. How large is the area of the seat (in meters²)?”

(Source: https://mathcitymap.eu/de/portal/#!/trail/2416904)

March and April were very productive and training-rich months. At the end of March, Tim, Matthias and Isabella went to the MNU national congress. This year it took place in Jena. The forecourt of the Volkshaus provided many great opportunities for new MathCityMap tasks. The congress stand was supervised throughout the entire period and on the last day a workshop on MathCityMap was organized with over 30 enthusiastic participants. The teachers were all very enthusiastic about our system and many also want to become part of the community.

The next trip for Simon, Matthias and Isabella was to the MATHE.FORSCHER Kick-Off in Heilbronn in mid-April. At this special event, we were once again able to present MathCityMap and also created tasks on the educational campus in advance.

As the grand finale, Matthias and Isabella were in Neustadt an der Weinstraße and gave two training courses for teachers, for which Matthias had created the tasks the day before. The weather was particularly good here, the sun was shining and all the participants had a lot of fun.

We are already looking forward to further training courses and workshops. If you would also like us to explain the system to you and your colleagues in more detail, please feel free to contact us by e-Mail at any time.

After some time, we would like to give you an insight into the current statistics of MathCityMap.

Since the system was launched on 01.01.2016, the app has been downloaded a total of 192,316 times.

There have been a total of 82,748 tasks and 30,004 users.

Moreover there havae been 8543 digital classrooms over the past years and with each day it´s getting more and more.

Thanks to the partner school program, a total of 44 schools worldwide can call themselves a MathCityMap partner school.

The trail that has been downloaded and completed the most in the last month is the trail “Praça da República, no Porto” by Alcina Lourenço. The public trail can be viewed under the following code: 3614904. Alcina Lourenço created this trail when she got to know MathCityMap and used the app for a while. She wanted to use it to develop her teaching practice and has used the trail several times with her own students. She has had many great experiences with MathCityMap and her students have also had a lot of fun trying out and getting to know the app.

Their trail is currently being used by many different independent teachers for their own lessons, which is why almost 200 downloads have taken place in the last month. This is an impressive number and we are curious to see how often the trail will be used in schools in the future.

Here you can gain a small insight into the environment of the tasks:

Alcina Lourenço can be contacted over Facebook or LinkedIn.

The MathCityMap team wishes you a Happy Easter and is curious to see if some of you have hidden the Easter eggs this year with the help of an exciting trail. MathCityMap is certainly one of the best apps to combine Easter with math and fun.

As a thank you for our great community, we have come up with an Easter special: an Easter riddle with a little surprise. The solutions can be sent to gogesch@math.uni-frankfurt.de with the subject “EasterMath” by April 14, 2024 and the first three correct answers will receive a small surprise from the MathCityMap team by post.

We hope that we can make everyone happy with the puzzle and some with the surprise.

The riddle:

The Easter Bunny wants to train his Easter Bunny apprentices and comes up with a delightful riddle. He takes two identical Easter baskets and paints 10 chocolate Easter eggs with green paint and 10 foam Easter eggs with red paint.
He gathers everyone together and says: “You can divide all the eggs between the two baskets however you like. Tomorrow you have to pull an egg out of one of the two baskets blindfolded. If you draw a chocolate Easter egg, you will advance to the next training level.”

How do the Easter bunny apprentices have to distribute the Easter eggs so that the chance of advancement is particularly high? How high is the probability then?

(based on: Eder, H.-K. (2020). Zauberhafte Mathematik – Mathematische Rätsel und Knobeleien. Munich: Hanser.)