17. January 2022

Trail of the month: Mathtrail at the Zeppelin grandstand

The Trail of the Month January comes from the second largest city in the German state of Bavaria. Frederic Fell, a student of secondary school teaching, created the trail “Mathe-Rundweg an der Zeppelintribüne” in Nuremberg, which can be accessed in the MCM app under the code 273993. It is available in the web portal here.

The trail, which consists of a total of nine tasks, was created in the direct vicinity of the Nuremberg stadium, the home of 1. FC Nuremberg (Der Club), partly on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds. In addition to the mathematics tasks, you can also explore historical topics.

 

Here you can find a short interview with Frederic Fell:

How did you come across the MathCityMap project? How do you use MCM and why?

I am studying to become a secondary school teacher with the subject combination mathematics / physics at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. I am currently writing my admission thesis (similar to a bachelor thesis, but for student teachers) in the didactics of mathematics. My supervisor Stephanie Gleich offered the topic “MathCityMap” and I was immediately interested. This admission thesis is, among other things, about extracurricular learning places, but also about modeling. The practical part of the work is my trail.

 

Where is your trail located? What is special about your trail?

My trail is located in Nuremberg on the former Reichsparteitagsgelände, which was used as a place for propaganda during Nazi times. Today the area is used in many different ways, as a recreation area, as a DTM race track or as a venue for the “Rock im Park” festival.
The special thing about the trail is that the relics from the Nazi era are used for better purposes, like a math trail. Of course the Reichsparteitagsgelände is a place of history, but I think it’s great how you can also learn something about math in such a place. The trail is set for ninth grade students at the Realschule. My intention is that the trail can be used as a field trip at the end of ninth grade. So we hike, do a little math and afterwards we can have a picnic at the Dutzendteich.

 

Briefly describe one of your tasks. How can it be solved?

I would like to describe the task “Rainbow” in more detail. 8 pillars were painted on the grandstand. You have to determine the painted area. One pillar is too big to measure. With the help of the picture you can see that 4 rectangular plates were painted on each pillar. The area of a rectangular plate can be determined. This must be taken times 4 to determine the area of a pillar and this in turn times 8 to calculate the total area. This task is varied and requires a bit of “thinking around corners”. The photographer has provided me with the rights for the pictures used in this task.

 

Do you have any other comments about MCM?

MCM is a really great project and I’m glad I was able to work with it as part of my graduate thesis. When I’m a trained teacher, I’ll definitely incorporate math trails like this into my teaching.

Date: 17. January 2022 | By: Philipp Larmann | Category:  | No Comments

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