17. April 2018

MoMaTrE project in Portugal

The MathCityMap team thanks our MoMaTrE partners from Portugal for a special outdoor event with MCM. Read their impressions in the following article by Amélia Caldeira and Ana Moura:

In the center of Matosinhos, a city in Porto’s metropolitan area, in Portugal, the mathematics was breathed with the event “Matemática vai ao Jardim” (Math goes to the Garden) on March 23rd. This event aims to celebrate mathematics and its relevance in everyday life, and in the progress of society. The main idea of this celebration was to use the students’ mathematical skills in the real world.

In a fun and innovative way, 170 students from Augusto Gomes Secondary School, equipped with a smartphone and the MathCityMap app (MCM app), answered several mathematical challenges, having as a backdrop the Garden Basílio Teles, in Matosinhos, and all its surroundings.

It was a competition between teams of three or four students.  All of them benefited from an outdoor activity: they left the school building, walked around and explorde the center of Matosinhos.

Using their mathematical knowledge, they solved the proposed tasks. All the tasks were in accordance with the knowledge level in which the team was in. Three math trails, with five tasks each, were designed: a route for 7th and 8th grade students, a route for 9th grade students, and another route for students from the 10th to the 12th grades.

Through the MCM app, students went on an outdoor walk along a route and solved math problems that were contextualized with the surrounding environment. The students passed through special places in Matosinhos, where math can be experienced in everyday situations. For example, a swing to calculate angles measures, lake bridge to calculate areas, garden benches to apply combinatorial calculus,…

The map with the location of the fifteen tasks is showed in figure 1:

Fig.1 – location of the fifteen tasks

In the end, the best team was selected from each of the three routes. The criteria for choosing the best team was the highest number of correct answers. In case of equality, the team that answered in the minimum time.

Both students and teachers of Augusto Gomes enjoyed the event “Matemática vai ao Jardim”.

Fig.2 – students measure the circumference of a sphere

You can find a briefly video-report here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr9XwMFfUnc&feature=youtu.be).

ISEP/P.Porto team who designed and invigorated the event:

Amélia Caldeira, Ana Moura, Ana Júlia Viamonte, Isabel Figueiredo, Helena Brás, Alexandra Gavina and Alzira Faria.

Date: 17. April 2018 | By: Simone Jablonski | Category:  | No Comments

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