If metal balls are tipped down a big board filled with vertically-divided rows, they fall into a bell curve. At least that is what my granddaughter and I caused to happen when we participated in a discovery day at the University of Wisconsin. The effect reminded me of the statistics professor who brought our graduate class a large bowl of colored marbles and a scoop that had indentations we each filled with five marbles and then averaged the number of green marbles to demonstrate how sampling works.
At a middle school, a remedial math teacher brought in a Makey Makey circuit board, sewing kit, and 3Doodler pen. Students grouped themselves by interest to use each device. When students in a regular math class saw what the remedial math students were doing they voluntarily signed up to attend the math support class twice a week.
What were the remedial math students doing? They played a song on six bananas wired together and to the circuit board. Some students began seeing how they could make a circle in a football team's logo by embroidering an arrangement of the squares made by cross-stitch Xs, the same way pixels do on a computer screen. By using the 3Doodler pen to draw the same 2-dimensional design over and over again on top of each other, students learned how 3D printing is making a wide variety of products, including homes.
Finally, students in the regular math class saw how the remedial students purchased additional circuit boards and supplies for the sewing basket and 3Doodler pens by perfectly pricing and selling pencils.
Students everywhere in the world have creative juices. Invite them to illustrate the books they read, figure out how to move heavy rocks, use as little cushioning as possible to prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from different heights, dissect an old watch, not only a frog.
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