Highway Link Design

This activity challenges students to design, and agree on an optimal route for, a village bypass, subject to the Highways Agency constraints for road design. Students use the provided software or physical resources and measure lengths of lines and curves, fine tune cost-benefit trade-offs, interpret data, convert units and balance their mathematical findings against stakeholder interests. In completing the activity students will be required to use the following mathematics: measurement, ratio and proportion, unit conversion, and speed-time-distance calculations. The emphasis is on learners using mathematical findings and reasoning to convince others. There are no ‘right’ answers; routes are presented to the class and put to a vote. The activity is designed so that students have the opportunity to discover how useful and necessary mathematical ideas can be when solving real-world problems. To use this resource: • download the zip file • extract all of the files • run the start file