Trail of the month: Freiburg
As our Trail of the Month for June, we would like to introduce the Mathtrail Freiburg, which, as the name suggests, is located in the southern German city of Freiburg. The trail can be found in the app under the code 1412574 and in the web portal under this link.
The trail consists of a total of eight tasks on diverse mathematical topics and was created as part of the international ICSE Academy project. What ICSE is and what makes this trail special is described in a short interview with one of the authors, Silvia Haringová.
Where is your trail located? What is special about your trail?
The trail is situated in the historic centre of the city of Freiburg im Breisgau. This trail was designed as an illustration for partners of the project ICSE Academy by Silvia Haringová, Janka Medová and Martin Cápay from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia.
What is the project ISCE and why was working with MCM benefitial for the project?
The International Centre for STEM Education at the University of Education Freiburg, Baden-Würtenberg, Germany (ICSE) is a research and networking centre focusing on a future-oriented development of STEM education in Europe. It is working closely together with the ICSE Consortium and other Partners in European projects to further develop and disseminate innovative teaching approaches in STEM education. Currently, they are working on various projects concerning environmental socio-scientific issues (MOST, ENSITE), the empowerment of girls in STEM (GEM) and the development of transversal skills in class rooms (STEMKey), as well as the professional development of teachers (3C4Life).
The ICSE Academy is a project where universities, schools and school authorities from 13 European countries work together aiming at development of STEM teacher education, both initial teacher education and professional development of in-service teachers. As shown by our work in Slovakia, MCM trails have big potential in stimulating teacher collaboration and co-design. Furthermore, MCM trails also fit with European priorities as defined in ICSE Academy project, they prepare pupils for life in digital era, teach them to collaborate and communicate their ideas, provide reasoning and also offer the opportunities to bring environmental issues in mathematics education.
Describe your favorite task on the trail. How can it be solved?
We create trails in different cities and states and the triangular shape is usually hard to find, so we were very happy to come across it in the city centre. Because of this fact, my favourite task is called Kornhaus passage.
The task is related to a triangle made of stone blocks. The user has to determine the circumference and the area of this triangle. For this, corresponding measurement data must be collected. Afterwards, one only needs the formulas for the perimeter and the area of a triangle.
