Blog #9: Math and Technology Cross-Curricular Lesson

 Hey everyone!

Today we are going to be looking at a trade type of application of mathematics.

In schools, we tend to focus on the university streamed courses, therefore making cross-curricular lessons and applications to other academic based courses like science, physics, english, geography, etc. 

The trades are such an important part of our society, and there are tons of students who will be going into the trades, so exposure to these types of courses can be very beneficial.

In the grade 10 applied math curriculum in the Measurement and Trigonometry unit the expectations of students are they they:

• "use the imperial system when solving measurement problems" (MFM2P, p. 54)
• "perform everyday conversions between the imperial system and the metric system and within these systems, as necessary to solve problems involving measurement" (MFM2P, p. 55)
• "solve problems involving the surface areas of prisms, pyramids, and cylinders, and the volumes of prisms, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres, including problems involving combinations of these figures, using the metric system or the imperial system, as appropriate" (MFM2P, p. 55)

These expectations can be covered with hands-on activities where students have to design objects. If provided the materials or the tools to do so (as well as safety training), students can have experience building and creating while also including math,

In the grade 10 Construction Technology course in the Technological Education curriculum, there is a unit called "Design, Layout, and Planning Skills" (p. 65). In this unit there is a focus on "Mathematical Skills". This shows how crucial math is in this type of profession. In this strand, students are asked to:

• B3.1 apply relevant mathematical concepts and formulas when preparing components of a construction project
• B3.2 convert fractions to decimals and vice versa for typical construction tasks
• B3.3 use appropriate metric and imperial approximations for sizes commonly used in the construction industry
• B3.5 prepare estimates, using appropriate metric and/or imperial units 

In this unit, you could ask students to create their own miniature model home using construction materials, they could also create a garden, they could create a chair, table or other household object.

Students would be given a certain amount of each material, they may be asked to consider a variety of criteria (chair must be 1 metre tall minimum, etc.). 

They can be in groups to design, layout and plan their object, and provided they have materials, safety equipment and supervision, they could actually construct their object.

This type of activity could also be added to my last blog post, where art of creating bridges is used. This
could be a three subject cross-curricular lesson. You could ask students create blueprints of houses, which would test their art skills by drawing the buildings, their construction based math skills by converting imperial to metric and vice versa, angles, shapes, etc. And their math skills from the curriculum by asking them to determine areas, volumes, and measurements of the building.

There are tons of connections between these two subject areas. In the comments, let me know how you might incorporate construction and technology into your math lesson!

Hope this gives you some ideas of including trades applications in your math class!

- Jenna