The Angles Roller Coaster

We believe that to give learning purpose and ignite interest it's important to link learning to real life situations. We have demonstrated this in some of our previous blog posts.

For this post we are looking at a real life situation for measuring and drawing angles in maths. We decided upon roller coasters as a good subject to base our lesson on. Roller coasters, after all, are all about angles!

Firstly, reading the angle of rises and falls on roller coasters involved looking at pictures of roller coasters. Then, drawing on lines to show the angle to be measured and then measuring this angle. We discussed what angles made the best roller coasters and why different angles were used. Below is an example of this:

Next, came drawing angles. Using the knowledge gathered from the 'reading angles' lesson the children had a go at drawing their own roller coasters. They then peer assessed which roller coasters they liked the look of, which they did not and why:

 

Give it a go. See what stomach churning rides your class can come up with...

Google Earth in Maths

I have used Google Earth a number of times in maths lessons. It has mostly been to make use of the 'ruler' tool and provide real life links to the lesson.

Ruler

The first use I've found for the ruler tool is for providing real life links to calculating area and perimeter. The ruler too can be used to measure the dimensions of the school playground, a football pitch (see below), a child's garden, the courtyard of Buckingham palace or even The Pentagon, anywhere really! This can be either as a whole class on an interactive display, with everyone calculating areas and perimeters based on the measurements taken or as individuals taking measurements on computers or hand held devices. As the ruler tool measures accurately it offers an opportunity to discuss rounding. Also, if calculating the area and perimeter of part of your school the activity can be carried out virtually on Google Earth and then in 'reality' by going out with trundle wheels and then comparing the two.

The other time I have used the ruler tool is when converting lengths. I've usually done this converting between centimetres, meters and kilometres, but it can also be used to practise converting metric to imperial or vice versa. The example below shows how the length of one side of the Pentagon can be measured and then converted into various different units of measure. The original measurement was taken in meters. I'd then ask the children to convert this to centimetres, kilometres or feet, inches etc., if covering converting to imperial measurements. Once the children have their answers one click of the button can quickly show them the measurement they should have arrived at. The measurement of 'Smoots' always causes some amusement and a good teaching point about less well known units of measure for length.

These are just some ideas I've made use of for using Google Earth in maths lessons. If you have some ideas of your own I'd love to have some comments below.

Update:

@PrimaryIdeas I used Google Maps in math. Sts found distance from home to school then calculated total distance in week by multiplying

— Ross O'Donnell (@rosspodonnell) January 9, 2016

 

Images all credited to 'Google Earth': earth.google.co.uk