Trail of the month: Learn something new!
October’s Mathtrail of the Month is located in the Slovakian town of Nové Zámky and lives up to its name “Learn Something New”. It was created by math teacher Aneta Vadkerti as part of the application process for Nábrežná 95 Elementary School to become a MathCityMap partner school. The trail is available in the MCM app under the code 342253 and on the MathCityMap web portal here.
The trail consists of a total of seven tasks, which are designed in such a way that interesting objects in the cityscape are viewed and discovered from a new, mathematical perspective. The mathematical content is wide-ranging and extends from geometric modeling to Roman numerals.
Aneta Vadkerti gives us a short interview below about the creation of the trail and her work with MathCityMap. Enjoy reading!
How did you come across the MathCityMap project?
I came across MathCityMap by accident, actually by a stroke of luck. A sister of my colleague works at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra. She told me that they were looking for enthusiastic math teachers who were willing to try and learn something new, able to communicate in English, create some math tasks and try them outdoors, and apply for a teacher training in Granada. The in-service training was only held online due to the pandemic, however, I was able to learn how to work with the MathCityMap portal there. I then attended two more online teacher training courses – Mobile Math Trails in Europe (MoMaTre) and Task Design for Mathtrails – and started using MathCityMap and teaching with MCM.
Where is your trail located? What is special about your trail?
The trail is located in the center of the city and is therefore accessible to anyone who likes math and solving problems. It was designed especially for ninth graders, to review what they have learned so far.
How do you use MCM and why?
I use MathCityMap to increase motivation for learning math and to relieve the boredom that classroom instruction sometimes struggles with.
My main goal is to connect mathematics with real life situations. I want to show my students that mathematics is really everywhere and that it is really useful and almost necessary to learn it. I want to take away the fear of mathematics. I have always wanted to show my students the beauty of mathematics.
The best thing is to see that the students really have fun while learning. They work in groups, help each other, communicate, compete, sometimes argue, but most of all they have a good feeling when they have solved a task correctly. Every time I do a trail outside with my students, there is a lot of laughter and they are happy. Seeing them happy makes me happy too, so I love MCM and conducting lessons with MathCityMap.
Describe your favorite task on the trail. How can it be solved?
My favorite task is “Famous landmarks”. It is a simple but very interesting task that teaches us a lot about the history of Nové Zámky.
