Weekly Blog #11

This week we made Geometry Books. I used my own digital picture taking skills to find geometry around town. Then I wrote my own definitions. So don't use them as true definitions because I came up with them on my own.

I thought it was a lot of fun.  As soon as I read about the assignment, I kept looking for and seeing geometry everywhere I went.  I got so involved and was eager to do the assignment because it was fun and engaging.

Digital cameras are fantastic. You can take hundreds of pictures and look at them instantly. You can put them on a computer and show them to others. The only downside is not being able to physically hold them, but if you like specific pictures enough, you can print them yourself or get them professionally printed so you can hang them up or put them in a scrapbook. The actual camera is pretty expensive, but overall, you save money when compared to the cost of printing pictures from a film camera.

I think the geometry book is a great idea for students.  They get to go outside of the classroom and discover things in the real world that relate to what they are learning in class.  It doesn't even have to be geometry.  Students could take pictures of historical places, specific rocks or leaves, or signs with vocabulary words on them.  If the teacher decides to print them out, the students will have a physical artifact of what they have learned that they can showcase or use as a reference.

Having students create a project like this forces them to really understand the concepts and utilize that knowledge by finding, and documenting, examples.  Students end up with a deeper understanding then they would have if they just learned about it from a book or in class and they come away from the lesson with a good attitude because it was fun.  No mental blocks against math when you enjoyed the experience of learning it. If only I had had experiences with science in elementary school that were this much fun, I might not hate science like I do now I'm in college.