Using the visitor economy to support the teaching and learning of mathematics
The activities featured require students to use a variety of mathematical skills in order to successfully complete the tasks. The mathematical activities require students to plan events, make decisions, use time and timetables, think logically and solve problems.
Picturing the Maths is an activity which helps learners become aware of the importance of maths in their vocational area. Time and timetables requires students to solve problems relating to time whilst Night Train is a video designed as stimulus to work relating to timetabling, speed, ratio, nets and patterns. Holidays contains a series of projects requiring students to use a variety of mathematical skills in order to design a camp site, make tents and plan a holiday. Plan a Trip is a project based activity requiring students to provide costings, carry out scheduling, surveys and everyday arithmetic. Getting Around uses decimals, frequency tables, graphs and percentages to explore data concerning efficiency, accidents, pollutions and costs of different forms of travel. In the Ordering resource the Making tea activity is concerned with finding the best way to organise time and uses Critical Path Analysis skills to find an efficient solution.
Mystery Tours, Torbury Festival, Day out, Hilbre Island, Ice Cream, Youth Hostel, Taxi Cabs and The Greenest Route are a series of project based activities requiring students to use a variety of mathematical, organisational and problem solving skills. Scheduling Aircraft is a more complex problem involving different time zones.
Picturing the Maths
This activity helps learners become aware of the importance of maths in their vocational area and use mathematical language to describe aspects of a job role. Learners may need support to use appropriate mathematical vocabulary and may require a list or glossary of mathematical terms relevant to their vocational area.
Learners may view some mathematical activities in the workplace as common sense such as a hairdresser handling bookings and schedule appointments without being fully aware that this has mathematical aspects such as time management, estimating how long various procedures will take, reading and writing using 24hr clock and sequencing.
Time and Timetables
Time and timetables covers tellling the time from a clock face, 12 and 24 hour clocks, converting between different units of time, timetables and solving problems in context.
Night Train
This Teachers TV video is part of the series A World of Maths, which travels to different locations to pose mathematical problems.
The mathematics required to operate the overnight sleeper train, running from London to Scotland, is highlighted in this video. There are 12 short scenes, each displaying a different aspect of mathematics for students to explore, investigate and discuss. Timetabling, speed, ratio, nets and patterns are some of the topics students will encounter.
The programme is intended to be used in sections, stopping and replaying the video to analyse the information and answer questions which are designed to stimulate mathematical discussion. A rich source of mathematical imagery, it can be shown on a whiteboard where the images can be annotated, or worked on by students using laptops, individually or in groups
Holidays / Traffic
Holidays theme links to directions, graphs, length and area, number operations, percentages, polygons, ratio, scale drawing, scheduling and time, 3-D modelling and weighing.
Holidays covers
Designing a model campsite: using nets, plans and 3-D models of a variety of shapes to design a tent.
A tent making business: using tent designs to help choose materials from which to make their tent.
Planning a holiday: reading information from tables, converting currencies and scheduling a holiday.
Plan a Trip
In this activity students plan and undertake a class trip using costings, scheduling, surveys and everyday arithmetic.
In a card game simulation, groups undertake and record imaginary trips, encounter problems and errors of judgement, then seek to correct them by better planning. Groups share ideas of possible places to go and produce a leaflet explaining these ideas.
The class then work together to reach a decision on the best destination and look at possible means of transport. The class lists, and then shares out and undertakes the preparatory tasks that need to be done before the trip can take place. The trip now takes place and, afterwards, the students reflect on what happened.
City Living / Getting Around
Getting Around uses decimals, frequency tables, graphs and percentages to explore data concerning efficiency, accidents, pollutions and costs of different forms of travel. Again the data files referenced are not available.
Transport - an introduction to energy efficiency, pollution, casualty rates, private versus public transport in which students use percentages, pie charts and frequency tables
Traffic flow - students interpret a line graph showing average speeds, compare data and make predictions based upon their findings
Pollution - students interpret data given in a table and use graphs to show their findings and write a report on the effects of pollution
Energy consumption - students make predictions about future energy use based upon their interpretation of the data provided and have to state the assumptions they have made
Private versus public transport - students study data about buses and their usage, make a comparison of car ownership in different countries and use graphs showing the growth of vehicle usage
Transport casualties - comparative bar charts are used to compare casualty rates for cyclists and pedestrians in different countries. Students are expected to conduct their own transport survey
Air travel - students interpret data from tables and use percentages to analyse the pollution effects of journeys to and from the UK
Ordering
These Cre8ate maths activities develop multi-stage logistical thinking.
The Planning ahead puzzle develops process skills of problem solving: working systematically and creating, describing and experimenting with systematic strategies. Making tea is concerned with finding the best way to organise time and draws on the Critical Path Analysis skills required to find an efficient solution to this kind of problem. Building a warehouse is another Critical Path Analysis activity which provides the opportunity to sequence a number of tasks considering which tasks can proceed in parallel in order to find an efficient solution.
Mystery Tours
This task consists of three activities and provides students with the opportunity to explore the use of mathematics in a travel and tourism context. Students adopt the role of newly-appointed managers at a travel company and are required to plan a tour of the UK, choosing the destinations, transport and accommodation they consider most appropriate within the constraints of the task. Once the planning is completed, the journey is simulated producing data that students are required to use to write a report in which they assess how successful the tour has been. Students will require access to computers for this activity although the planning can be done without.
To complete the activities students will be required to use mathematical problem solving skills, calculate with fractions and percentages, read and understand information presented in a variety of forms, solve a range of algebraic and geometric problems, calculate statistics and present information using appropriate graphs and charts.
Torbury Festival
Torbury Festival is a set of interactive lessons around staging of a music festival. To overcome various challenges, from floods to escaped cattle to over-excited crowds storming the stage, students must apply their mathematical knowledge to real life situations. The problems are intended to promote discussion, reasoning and creativity in order to ensure that the festival is a success.
The four lessons are entitled:
• Underwater
• Merchandise mayhem
• Cows gone wild
• Emergency plans.
Resources include an introduction, four lesson plans, video and audio clips, slides, resource sheets presenting the challenges, and some possible solutions to the problems.
In completing the set tasks, students will calculate with decimals and percentages, calculate rates, find areas of circles, volumes of prisms and cylinders, construct triangles and bisectors of line segments and angles, and apply the idea of locus. To solve some problems students will solve equations and draw graphs of functions and use ICT.
Day Out
In this task, students plan a day out for thirty pupils based upon data given. Students are provided with three places from which to choose. Information about the distance from the school and the entrance cost of each activity is given, along with the results of a survey in which each of the thirty pupils have stated their first and second choice.
Students are required to simplify the task, summarise the unsorted data and represent the data mathematically. Costs need to be calculated and analysis interpreted in order to make a decision of which of the three suggestions is visited.
Hilbre Island
In this task, students are required to plan a walking trip to Hilbre Island. Students are given information about when it is safe to walk to the island, how long it takes to walk there and the times of the high tides on the proposed dates of the trip. Students have to understand the problem, work logically, consider the constraints and communicate and summarise their findings. There are many websites giving information about Hilbre Island that can be used to put the task into context.
Ice Cream
In this task, students are planning to sell ice creams at their sports day. Students are told how much a tub of ice cream costs, how much a cone costs and how much they are to sell each ice cream for. Students are also given a pie chart showing the results of a survey asking pupils their favourite flavour of ice cream. Students have to decide how much of each flavour ice cream to buy in order to maximise their profits. Students have to interpret diagrams, select appropriate information to solve the problem, work logically, check calculations and communicate their findings effectively.
Youth Hostel
In this task, students are required to allocate dormitories at a Youth Hostel for a given number of boys, girls and adults given certain constraints. Suitable methods of displaying the information are to be designed, a systematic method employed in order to check that all the conditions have been met and clear justification that their solution works are required.
Taxi Cabs
In this task, students are asked to organise a trip to the airport for 75 people. A combination of small and large taxis can be used. Students are told how many people each taxi can hold and how much each taxi costs and are required to find the cheapest solution. Students select a suitable representation using tables or graphs, calculate costs systematically and communicate their conclusion and reasoning clearly.
The Greenest Route
This Cre8ate maths activity deals with the external costs of transport which affect society but which are not paid for by the transport users who cause them.
Road, rail, air and water are compared. Mathematical connections involve working on inverse proportion, conversion calculations, compound percentage change and information handling skills.
Scheduling Aircraft
The flight from Singapore from London takes 13 hours and 35 minutes. Given the take off time and the fact that Singapore is 7 hours ahead of London, students are asked to find the local time the plane lands in London. Students are posed a series of problems and tasks relating to other flights between Singapore and London involving the scheduling of flights, designing timetables and completing a week-long schedule with a designated number of planes.