8th Grade “Big Project”
Many people would agree that math can be a challenging subject. That is why it’s essential for teachers to develop ways for their students to learn crucial math skills in a fun and engaging way. Lisa Smith, who teaches one of the 8th-grade math classes, had her students do a math project where they took an item and re-built it at a larger size while maintaining the proportional relationships. To make the project more personal and appealing to the students, they were permitted to choose the item they would create.
The “Big Project” was meant to focus on ratios, proportions, and percent increase. Students could work individually or in a group or partnership. The class began working before the Christmas holiday, so they discussed how items they might ask for as Christmas gifts would be even better if they were bigger. They were to choose an item that meant something to them and design each piece of the “big” version, starting with material selection and continuing to the finished, designed product. As the kids took their item and increased its size, all the sides and dimensions had to remain proportionate to the others. They were able to use tools in the Makerspace lab to create pieces of the projects and Notability or document cameras to help size and trace graphics and lettering. The students also needed to calculate the percent increase from the original size to the completed version. The projects were graded on things like accuracy of measurement, use of time, visual appeal of the final product, and overall effort.
The creations were quite impressive! See the pictures to see the finished products!
