Exit Slip: Math Fair at the Museum of Anthropology

For this afternoon's class, we participated in the math fair presented by grade 6 students from West Point Grey Academy. A few weeks ago, the students were given math problems to work on in pairs. After they have figured out the solution, they visited the Museum of Anthropology and modified their problems to incorporate an artifact of interest to them. Then, they prepared the presentation for the day of the math fair, making display boards with a description of the problem, hints, and solutions along with an interesting back story and manipulatives.

During the math fair, we were encouraged to go around in groups of two or three to visit each project. In a group with two others, I was particularly impressed by three presentations. For the first one, the group made two sets of the game board with numbered sea shells for two people to use as aids to solve their problem. In addition, they provided an extra white board for the third person in our group to write on. I think it was quite thoughtful of them to be so prepared and they also gave us each a little present after we successfully solved their math problem. The second group’s model of their problem was not entirely workable so they directed us to pointing our fingers on a drawing on their display. What they lacked in physical manipulatives they made up in their oral presentation. One of the little girls explained the conditions of the problem and guided us through solving it with a high level of clarity and confidence. They had figured out that we were training to be math teachers because we were over-thinking the problem! As we exited, I spied another project that caught my attention so I went back by myself to talk to this group. It was a problem on inverting a triangle made out of multiple blocks. The girl led me to solve several similar problems using less number of blocks before tackling their challenge problem. I think that scaffolding really helped to build my confidence as the number of blocks increased. Then without me mentioning (for a previous group, we asked the presenters, “What will happen if you started with a larger number?”), the girl told us that we can use the same method to obtain a solution for a triangle with n blocks. She also pointed out how the problem is related to the Fibonacci sequence which I had not thought of either.

Overall, I saw that many of the parents came to support their children’s work. I am also encouraged by the level of effort and professionalism displayed during this math fair.