Teaching math in a way that’s engaging and relatable can be a real challenge. The concepts are often abstract and difficult to imagine, and for students with unique learning challenges, certain math fundamentals can present a lot of problems. The website that we are looking at today presents math concepts in a way that students can connect with on a personal, social, and global level.
Citizen Math is a unique platform with a simple goal: Teach math in a way that not only explores the math concepts themselves, but also teaches students about important issues around the world. The idea is that this approach is not only more engaging, but that students will walk away from a Citizen Math lesson having learned more about the world around them and will thus become better “citizens” of the world.
Each lesson includes interactive components such as video clips, interactive graphs and charts, and more. The student handouts are well designed, with lots of space for writing, plus they can be marked up and collected electronically. The teacher guides are well written with clear objectives and timelines being provided.
As an example let’s look at the lesson Text Me Later: How Dangerous is Texting and Driving? This lesson explores the dangers of texting and driving in a very clear and scientific way by exploring the following real-world takeaways:
⦁ The longer the text (or time distracted) and the faster a driver is going, the more road they miss while distracted.
⦁ A car going 30mph will travel more than 100 feet even in the time it takes to send a very short text.
⦁ People die everyday from distracted driving, and many are pedestrians or passengers not engaged in the dangerous activity themselves.
The provided student handout does a great job illustrating a moving cars potential response time, and in the end students learn about the math concept itself as well as the WHY of why driving and texting is so dangerous, which is something that many teens can benefit from.
Citizen Math focuses on grade 6,7,8, math as well as Algebra 1 & 2. To explore some of Citizen Math’s free sample lessons, click here(new window). To learn even more about Citizen Math, including pricing information click here(new window).
