Design

a lot project lesson plan:

The idea of this lesson comes from the issues that my students claim they see
everyday in Holt. Some of the issues that my students talked about included
homelessness, littering, and small businesses closing down. For this project,
students will design their own empty lot while demonstrating their knowledge for
scale factor and proportions. I will also have my students explain why their use of
the empty lot would benefit their community.

Goals for the project:
Demonstrate knowledge of scale factor and proportions
Get students to think critically about issues that affect their community
Create some ideas about what could change their community in a positive
way
Have students provide reasoning or evidence in support of their decision
making


Materials:
Pen/pencil
Colored pencil
Ruler
Paper (About 24In X 36 in)
Protractors
Project description


Timeline:
This lesson will require about a week to complete. The first day would be the day to
introduce the project. As a class, we may go to the computer lab to research
different ways we can help the community such as services homeless shelters
provide or ideas for what we would put in a park. A day to research like this would
give all of the students a good start and provide some helpful ideas.

The rest of the week would be spent working on the project and completing it. On
the last two days scheduled, we will have everyone present their creation and also
discuss about different ideas that are being used to help improve the community.















Plan:

You are the city coordinator and you have been assigned to repurpose an empty lot
in your community. It is your choice what you put there as long as it will benefit
your community. The size of the lot you are given is 36 ft. by 24 ft.

In your lot, you must have:
A feature that is a quarter of the size of one of your dimensions of the lot
4 different similar figures of different sizes
Two similar circles with a scale factor of 3
All figures that are similar to another must be the same color
Two similar triangles with a scale factor of your choosing

In addition:

In our initial discussion, you all expressed different concerns about your
community. This project is a space for you to say what you would like to see in your
community. Along with constructing something from this empty lot, provide a few
reasons how your creation will help improve your community (a community garden
will reduce litter is an example of a potential idea).

Make a title of your creation
Make sure that your work is neat and colored
Make appropriate labels for your features














Reflection:

For my community math project, I decided to ask my students questions
about issues that they may see each day. Being in a school like Holt, it is a little
difficult to walk about the community since there are students from both Holt and
Lansing. As a supplement for data, I asked my students about their opinions on
issues in school, in their community, and in our country. For designing the project, I
decided to focus on the students concerns about the community. In the data, I saw a
lot of concerns about bullying, but I decided not to go in that direction since they
attend seminars on bullying quite often. Since they are in seventh grade, I noticed
that their world view is pretty limited, mostly listing issues such as Trump and ISIS
in this section. However, I found that a lot of my students provided some thoughtful
responses when they were asked about their opinions about their community. A lot
of the issues I saw in the data included homelessness, small business closing,
littering, and drug abuse.
Since my students showed a lot of thoughtfulness and concern for the
community that they live in, I decided to pair up with Alec and adapt a project
similar to his city design project. What I enjoyed about making this project is that it
was adapted from a higher level math course and could be applied to the seventh
grade. Instead of focusing on geometry, I shifted to a focus on scale factor and
proportions. While the math involved in this project is at different levels, it still
maintains a message to the students of thinking critically to promote positive
change to their community. Whether it is a 7th grade student or a 10th grade
geometry student, they are still talking about what may benefit their community the
most, and between Grand Blanc, Holt, and Lansing, there may be some vastly
different ideas. Another reason I like this project stems from that idea; students will
be able to gain a sense of awareness of what other students place an importance on
in their community.
When I teach, my main goal is for students to collaborate and critique each
others thinking. Some days, it is difficult for students to interact in this fashion with
mathematics. However, I feel that this project does a great job with applying
mathematical practices to a practical context. Rather than critiquing others on
mathematical ideas, students are making arguments about what would bring about
positive change to their community. By interacting in this way, students are starting
to get an idea about a process for how change comes about in their community.