A+Social+Justice+Data+Fair

=**A Social Justice DATA FAIR: Questioning the world through math**= This article talks about a K-12 school wide project which gets students to learn and apply math through a social justice project. The project was created based on evidence that students, especially girls, learn math better when relating it to something that is meaningful to them, inquiry based, and built off of material they have gathered themselves. This project also encourages them to see how math can be used as a tool for creating change, as they hopefully become agents of change.

The project begins with students asking questions, researching and conducting experiments,collecting data, using quantitative data to formulate answers to your question, and representing this data in two separate graphical displays. This project, which takes several weeks, is then presented in a school wide Social Justice Data Fair, where students can share and talk about their projects. The full project took several weeks, but the teachers felt the time spent on it paid off as the students really learned the material well, as well as learned how they can use math as a toolbox to become agents of change.

One parent said that they enjoyed their daughter coming home from school and being able to have conversations about what she learned in math class at the dinner table!

Examples of projects from students:

Examples of projects from students:

1st-2nd Graders: Used bar graphs to show what they and their families have eaten that week to answer the question, “How hard is it to live on a welfare diet?”

6th Graders: Used rice bags to visually display the amount of food consumed by countries across the world.

9th Grade – Mi-sun demonstrated that Korean students were most likely to commit suicide.


 * What questions might your students ask? How can you see this working in your classroom?﻿ **
 * Well after reading "Why Gender Matters" I agree that girls and boys should be taught math in both gender languages for maximum understanding. In my art classes we use math in a realistic manor in the following ways; we use rulers to measure paper, figure out boarders, make geometric shapes, create tesselations, discuss percents when mixing paint, use subtraction to figure out placement of art on a background, count when waiting for glue to dry... and on and on... I am always amazed when fourth graders do not know how to use a ruler, let alone read one. Many times kids spend one day on a worksheet using a ruler to measure lines on the worksheet. Now in reality how often does that happen? In kindergarten I am the one who explains the difference between lines and shapes and the difference between organic and geometric shapes in second grade. Also, in kindergarten we talk about symmetry and in later years, mirror images. I love teaching in a realistic way and am very lucky that I can give students a reality based understanding. WE DON'T NEED WORKSHEETS! Jen **

Irene:  It's refreshing to hear that you can teach math in this way, through art. In ESL, I do have some freedom also to teach the extensive vocabulary of math, in various ways. I think up signs to act out words like capacity, length, height, weight, volume, area... think of learning all these words the same day, in Chinese. I'm sure that they all begin to sound the same, so if I can add a sign to them, it will help it stick. We don't use worksheets, either.


 * Emmy: The dual brain coding theory says that we store picture images in a different part of the brain than language - what a great way to give students more than one way of getting language learning into long term memory. **

Amy: I always think the real-life math problems stick the best as well! In my class we worked in groups of three to figure out how to share 7 cookies among 26 students. They drew the plan and then got to cut the cookies themselves and pass them out. I also try to show them early on that drawing a picture can really help. If they draw the fish swimming away instead of just reading it, they are more likely to realize that the problem should be subtraction. I am having a difficult time thinking of a socially relevant math problem my first graders could work on that would be appropriate. We do talk about Martin Luther King Jr. in January and discriminate against students based on eye-color for a few days. Perhaps graphing the time wasted walking to an alternative bathroom or bubbler?

Carrie: I wish that math had been taught this way when I was in elementary, m.s. and h.s. Maybe I would have been more successful and not have such a distaste for it even now. I think it is so logical to teach math with real-life situations. For every content area, children relate and learn more effectively if they can make a personal connection to it. I try to do as much as this as I can in my classroom unfortunately, I think it may be lost as the children get older.

 Cheri: At PHS relevant is the key word. We need to teach each content area in a way that is relevant to the student’s lives. The administration is always asking; Is it relevant to the student? I must admit this is quite easy in the Family and Consumer area. We are currently learning about halving and doubling recipes in Foods. This is the hardest unit we have because many students in 9th grade do not know how to work with fractions. I believe that if students see a connection between what they are learning and how it applies to their own life they will retain the information and be able to use it in the “real” world.