McKenzie’s Blog

Peer Review

McKenzie:
 
I have just finishing taking a math road trip, escorted around the country by your Google Earth project. I like the general concept – looking at some interesting landmarks around the United States. Your use of photos within the pop-up box of your thumbtacks is excellent, and a great way to overcome the major weakness of Google Earth, which is limited 3D capabilities. I enjoyed working on the math problems that were presented at each stop along the way. This was an excellent way to review some very important geometric concepts. Depending on the age and proficiency of the students that will be using the project, you might consider adding the needed formulas to each pop-up, or perhaps give them a link to a website where they can find the appropriate formulas. Overall, very enjoyable. Nice work!
 
Brian H.

 Project Description

I was frustrated with this assignment at first as I struggled to come up with a use for Google Earth in the mathematics classroom. With some help from Jen Butler, I settled on an idea that I am very excited about now. I am actually going to be using the math road trip I created in my practicum as a review for the post-test I will be giving on the last day. I will be covering perimeter, area and scale of polygons and area and circumference of circles in my lessons. I found locations and structures across the country that I could work into equations to review the content of the lessons. I will be presenting on a smart board and as we stop at each location, there will be a fun fact (which lends itself to cross curricular learning) and a story problem. The students will work through each problem using the equations I will have taught them in earlier lessons. There is also a picture of each structure we are visiting and a link to the internet where students can learn more about it. The benchmarks this project will cover are 7.3.5 Find and justify relationships among the formulas for areas of different polygons when determining surface area, and 7.3.3 Solve problems involving areas and circumferences of circles.