Group Number: _______
Names of School Students in Group: ___________________________
Names of University Students in Group: ________________________
You are going on a walk-a math walk-around your immediate school area.
It will probably take about 45 minutes to an hour to complete this Math Trail. If, after an hour, you are NOT
finished, stop wherever you are and return to the school.
You will be assigned a group number. Your group, made up of 2-3 children and 2 university students, will begin
at a certain number on this trail. People will take you to your starting number. Begin the Math Trail at this
number. For example, if you are assigned # 12 as your starting number, then you will begin at # 12, then go to
# 13, 14 etc. and end your Math Trail at # 11.
Some of the mathematics might be too difficult for you. Ask others in your group if you don't understand the question
or the mathematics.
Most important-have fun!!!
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Station 1: School Playground Equipment At this station you will be investigating different things: |
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| A. | Go to the Tic Tac Toe game. If you were to spin one of the Xs and Os 10 times, guess how many Xs you would get? _______ How many Os? _______ Now spin it and see how many of each you get. Xs _______ Os _________ If you were to spin it 100 times, guess how many of each you think there would be? _____________ |
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| B. | In this playground there are 4 different kinds of slides. I wonder which slide is the fastest. Talk about
which slide you think is the fastest. Now take a marble and stop watch. Go to the top of each slide one at a
time and let your marble go. Use the stop watch to note the time the marble hits the ground. Try sliding down
each slide and time the person sliding down. To find your total slide time subtract the end and starting times.
Why do you think the slides have different total times? Are the marbles faster than the people, or the people faster than the marbles? Why? |
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| C. | Look around the play structure. How many different sets of parallel lines are there? Draw them-watch the
angles; also, some may be curved!!! Use the back of this sheet if you need to.
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| Station 2: Road Signs and Traffic Patterns (Elphinstone and 7th Ave) | ||||||||||||||||
| A. | Stop at the first street intersection. Are there road signs close by this intersection? ___________ What signs do you see? Where are the signs-on the streets or avenues? _______________ What do these signs mean? What shape are they? Draw the signs and label the shapes. |
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| B. | Watch traffic at this intersection for 2 minutes. Count the vehicles that pass. List the type of vehicles
(van, car, bus, bicycle, truck, other). After 2 minutes of recording, look at your list and try to guess the next
5 vehicles. Write down your guess, then watch to see if you were right.
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| Station 3: 1278 Elphinstone | ||||||||||||||||
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Stop at 1278 Elphinstone. How many different shapes can you see on the front wall of this house? Draw the different
shapes, name them and write what they are shapes of (e.g., window, door etc.) |
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Station 4: House Numbers |
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Houses have special kinds of numbers on the front-do you know what they are called? __________________ We stopped a minute ago at 1278 Elphinstone. The number of the next house is 1274 Elphinstone. Talk in your groups, guess why is it NOT 1277 Elphinstone or 1276 Elphinstone? What number is the house next to 1274 Elphinstone? _____________ Make a list of the 5 house numbers next to each other beginning with 1278 Elphinstone. 2nd house: 1274 Elphinstone 3rd house: ____ Elphinstone 4th house: ____ Elphinstone 5th house: ____ Elphinstone
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| Station 5: Liz Cooper's House-1238 Elphinstone | ||||||||||||||||
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Stop at Liz's house. You might hear a bunch of dogs barking. I wonder how many dogs she has!!!! Take a guess
_________ Look at the railing on either side of the front steps. There is a very interesting arrangement of maple leaves in the wrought iron design. Draw one 'branch' of these leaves. Each leaf in this branch is the same shape, but it looks a little bit different. How is it different? |
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| Station 6: 1230 Elphinstone | ||||||||||||||||
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There is something quite unusual about this house. Look at the front of the house carefully for a few seconds.
What is special about this house? _____________ If you were to paint a line to split the house in two (almost) equal parts, where would you paint the line? _____________ Make a list of 3 things that are DIFFERENT in each half of the house. ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ |
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| Station 7: Leaves | ||||||||||||||||
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Look at some leaves on different trees around you. Use your pencil to do a leave rubbing of two different leaves.
Count the number of veins in the leaves and compare the amount in the two leaves.
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| Station 8: Argyle Street-House Numbers and Window Shapes | ||||||||||||||||
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You are now about to walk down Argyle Street. As a group, you need to record all the house numbers and window
shapes on this block. Assign one student to record the odd numbers, someone else the even numbers, and the others
can draw different window shapes. The following are some questions that you will answer once you have recorded
everything. |
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| A. |
a. One of the above numbers is a palindrome. Which number? _______ b. One of the numbers has its digits in sequence. Which number? _____ c. One of the numbers is written in words. Which number? ________ d. One of the numbers has one digit missing. Guess the missing digit. _______ |
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| B. | Now that you have drawn all the window shapes you could find on this block, answer the following questions: How many different kinds of window shapes did you find? _____________ Draw examples of these shapes here. Discuss these shapes. If you were building a house what window shapes would you choose and why? Some houses have windows that are rectangular in shape and each rectangle is exactly the same size. Some rectangular windows are different sizes, but they are still rectangles. There are special names in mathematics given to these two kinds of windows. You'll learn about these during the debriefing. |
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| Station 9: Street Sign | ||||||||||||||||
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One street sign that you come to on Argyle Street has the following time on it: 0800-2200. What does this time refer to? __________ How long a time is it-how many hours? ___________ The above time is recorded in digital time using the 24 hour clock. What time do you leave school in the afternoon? ____________ Write this time digitally, using the 24 hour clock numbers. _______________ |
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| Station 10: 1265 and 1267 Argyle Street | ||||||||||||||||
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This house has a very interesting 'front.' I wonder if the people who live in 1265 Argyle Street ever go into
1267 Argyle Street by mistake. Why do you think it might be easy to make this mistake? Draw the front of this house. Name 3 things that are different about the two parts of the house from the front. ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ I wonder how the rooms in each house are arranged-not the furniture, but the actual rooms. Talk about this in your groups. |
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| Station 11: West Wall of School | ||||||||||||||||
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Make an outline of the wall of the school. The windows on this wall have a kind of pattern. Start at the top
of the school and look from left to right. Can you see a window pattern on the top row? Draw this on your outline.
Now look at the second row and look for the pattern. Is it different than the top row? Discuss how you can make
it the same. Now fill in the second row of windows to match the pattern on the top row. Repeat the discussion
on the bottom level and finish the pattern of windows. |
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| Station 12: Estimating Chain Link Fence | ||||||||||||||||
| A. | You are not going to actually measure the entire length of chain link fence. But you do need to do the following:
Estimate the length between the upright posts.____________meters Use your tape measure to measure the distance between the uprights. ________________meters As you walk South on Argyle Street count the number of fence sections there are (we will assume that the distance between all the posts is the same as the one you measured). _______________fence sections Calculate the actual distance of that one block length of fence. ______________meters. |
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| B. | If there was a chain link fence right round the 4 sides of the school, and if each block length of fence was
the same, what would be the total length of chain link fence to go completely round the school? _______________
meters |
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| C. | If chain link fences cost $10.00 a meter what would be the cost of fencing the school? ______________ |
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| Station 13: Steps | ||||||||||||||||
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Steps are an interesting feature of buildings. On the south side of Sacred Heart Church you will find a variety
of sets of steps. Measure the height of one step (you can assume that all steps in your staircase will be the
same height). ____________________________ Now measure the flat part of each step-the part where you foot goes. ____________________________ Which is greater, the vertical distance or the horizontal distance? ____________________________ Do you think that is true of all staircases? Quickly measure the height and length of one step in any other staircase between here and the school. What is the ratio between the height and the length of steps? Height : Length = ratio of the steps _________ : __________ |
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| Station 14: Tree Circumference | ||||||||||||||||
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Select a tree close to the statue at the front of the church. Estimate how many hands placed side by side (fingers pointing up) it would take to go around this tree. Estimate: number of hands to go around tree. Now place your hands side by side and see how close you come to your estimate. Make sure you mark in some way (but don't hurt the tree) where you start measuring (someone in your group can put their hand on the tree at the part where you start measuring). Actual measure: number of hands around tree. |
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| Station 15: Name of School-SACRED HEART | ||||||||||||||||
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Stop for a minute and look at the letters in the school name. Make a list of smaller words that can be made from
SACRED HEART. (e.g., red, hat, scared) |
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| Station 16: Height of School | ||||||||||||||||
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We will not be able to measure the actual height of the school, but again we can estimate. One student needs to
stand against the wall of the school. Someone else can measure this student with the tape measure. Student's Height: _____________ How many of this student's height do you think will be the same as the height of the school? School Height: _______ students high Now repeat this using a leader's height. Leader's Height: _____________ School Height: _______ leaders high How many Mr. Banadyga's would the school be? ____________ |
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| Station 17: Tessellations | ||||||||||||||||
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On your walk, outside the school, on the sidewalk, on buildings etc. you will have noticed some examples of similar
repeating patterns or tessellations. Draw one example of a tessellation you noticed on this walk on the back of
the paper. |
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NOTES FOR ANYTHING ELSE YOU NOTICE ON YOUR MATH TRAIL
Back to the U of R Math Trails