Photo Credit: _Untitled-1 via Compfight

For some time I’ve been thinking about how to get more real-world math in our classroom. Our school district uses the Everyday Math program and I’ve been sometimes surprised at how little “everyday” there is to go along with the “math.”

We have participated in Franki Sibberson’s Solve It Your Way challenge, which the kids have really enjoyed. This month asked the question: Who in your family jumps the highest? We decided to use this as a whole class activity AND also as a way to practice some data collection and analysis skills we are learning in math class.

We moved through a scientific processes assuming Franki’s question as our own. We created a hypothesis, and thought a bit about how we would conduct the experiment so we could develop a list of materials to gather.  That’s where the thinking got interesting. We generated a list of materials — yardstick, jumpers, flat space, data table — but we had a difficult time thinking about how we could collect accurate data since a jump happens so quickly.

I had an idea that we might be able to use a video camera to slow the jump speed down, but I didn’t want to come right out and tell the kids that; I wanted them to grapple with the dilemma for awhile.

We talked about several ways we could collect data, including having someone lie on the floor and try to figure out how far up the yardstick children could jump. (That seemed hard to do since jumps happened so quickly.) We thought about extending our arms up a wall, measuring that extension, then jumping with something to put a mark against the wall. We’d subtract the jump mark from the non-jump mark. (I thought that was a pretty elegant solution to the problem since it wouldn’t rely on fast looking but on using mathematical differences. We could accurately measure the distances, too!) The problem with that solution, though, was we didn’t think we’d do our best jumping while trying also to make marks on a wall, so this method wouldn’t be an accurate measurement of our jumping abilities.

Next, I mentioned that we had some technology we could add to the mix, for instance we could add digital photography since I had both kinds of cameras in the room, and would that make a difference in how we designed the experiment?

The kids grappled with the implications of this new information. (“Maybe we could try to take a picture of the highest point of the jump?” But from their experience taking digital still photos, others said that wouldn’t be an easy thing to do.) Finally, one boy thought we might be able to try slow motion video. Others agreed. And that’s how we got our idea to create a video of our jumping.

When we looked back on the video we made, it was too hard to see the inch marks on the ruler so we re-jumped with inch marks clearly marked on a roll of tape paper. (An example of how scientists sometimes learn from our “failures.”) That change helped quite a bit! We were able to play the slow motion video until each jumper was at the top of the jump, stop the motion, and suspend the jumper in mid-air. (By the way, this was hilarious, seeing us all suspended in the air like that!)

What I learned from this — and what some of the children learned as well — was how closely connected the need for accurate data collection is to the design of the experiment. If flexible thinking is one goal of our learning together, then this was a good example of how we could achieve that outcome. We had to think how our materials and our need to slow down the act of jumping, which influenced how we did our experiment.

And this backward/forward type thinking reminded me of the work that we are trying to do in literacy as well, to be aware of the whole, rather than just the parts. There is no single, straight path to a solution, rather we hack our way through the jungle.

So, finally, here’s a short (3:22) video of our attempt to answer the question.