Task of the Week: The green ear

Today´s task of the week is located in Lüneburg, Germany, where the teacher trainee Jennifer Oppermann created the task “The green ear”. She gave us an interview about this task, mathematic modelling and the MathCityMap project.

What´s the topic of the task?

The question is, how tall the human being would be, the green ear belongs to. To solve the task students first have to measure the sculpture of the green ear, followed by measuring an ear of a student. In addition, the body size of this students should be identified.

Afterwards the quotient of the length of the green ear and the students´ ear is multiplicated with the body height of the student. Thereby the size of the human being, to whom the green ear would belong, can be estimated.

What´s the didactic aim of the task?

While working on the task, students should improve their competences in mathematic modelling. Modelling means to link the reality and the mathematic and to solve a given problem through a mathematic calculation. Thus, MathCityMap is a helpful tool to observe the connection between environment and mathematics and to exert mathematical strategies.

How do you use MathCityMap?

To discover our near environment out of a mathematical perspective, we created a math trail through the Hanseatic town of Lüneburg. The MathCityMap project enables mathematic interested people to solve our tasks around Lüneburg and to increase their mathematical competences.