Category: General

We are happy to welcome the primary school in Petrovice as a new MathCityMap partner school. The math teacher Anna Bejšovcová created three interesting trails for the third and fourth grade together with the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra and has already tested them with the children.

The trails mainly focus on addition, multiplication and length measurement and can be found with the following codes:

ZŠ Petrovice 3. ročník (Code: 3523307)

ZŠ Petrovice 4. ročník (Code 3423308)

ZŠ Petrovice – areál (Code: 7823343)

„The children had a lot of fun with the measuring and also with the fact that we have 107 coat hangers but only 50 pupils. The pupils really enjoyed the maths trails. They were enthusiastic and are looking forward to trying the other challenges.“

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.

From September 20 to 21, 2024, the ISTRON conference took place in Frankfurt at Goethe University for the first time. As part of this conference, we organized a training day for mathematics teachers on the topic of mathematical modelling and sustainability.

The participating teachers were able to listen to interesting lectures and take part in exciting workshops. The lecturers came from various universities in Germany and Austria, such as the two keynote speakers Prof. Dr. Katrin Vorhölter from the Technical University of Braunschweig and Prof. Dr. Martin Bracke from the University of Koblenz.

During the lunch break, a MathCityMap Challenge took place, which led over the beautiful Westend Campus.

This training day was sponsored by CASIO as well as MathCityMap.

We were very pleased about the great interest in the training day and are looking forward to the next ISTRON conference!

Dear MathCityMap community,

We are incredibly excited to share this special milestone with you. There are now over 36,000 users and 90,000 tasks worldwide. We would like to present a few of the most exciting new tasks to you here and perhaps give you some new inspiration for your own tasks:

How big is the difference in centimetres between the shallowest and deepest depth indicated at this bathing spot?

Task: Small cubes (Code: 1796716 ) for grade 7

There are lots of colorful cubes hanging under the staff room. Calculate what percentage of the cubes are green. Enter the percentage (without the percentage sign, rounded to whole percentages).

We are looking forward to many more great MathCityMap years and the next good 90,000 tasks!

Your MathCityMap team 🙂

We are delighted to welcome Romania’s first partner school. The maths teacher Mihaela Hadar from the German-speaking Brukenthal-Gymnasium in Sibiu (Hermannstadt) has created three exciting trails for the fifth, sixth and seventh grades around the school and has already had great experiences with the students.

The trails not only provide a mathematical experience of the 2007 UNESCO World Heritage city, but also an insight into its history. The first trail for year five, “Maths and history: around Brukenthal” (code: 5622179), focuses primarily on understanding numbers. The second trail for the sixth grade, “Maths & Bruk” (code: 1921999), is primarily about symmetries and the third trail for the seventh grade, “Maths with a difference” (code: 5822001), involves calculating areas in the immediate vicinity.

“I think MathCityMap is very good, as it allows math to be practiced in everyday life. The students had a lot of fun and wanted to use MathCityMap more often in the future.”

Below are a few insights into the tasks and how to solve them:

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 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)