Category: General

MathCityMap was honoured as App of the Month by the German Academy for Child and Youth Literature!

The jury explained its decision as follows: “To get to know attractions in Germany [and all over the world] by solving lifelike mathematic tasks: Students of the 4^th up to the 11^th grade have to measure the necessary values in order to work on the given tasks. The solving process is supported by hints.”

The MathCityMap team is really pleased with this award and starts very motivated in the new year!

Our new trails of the month were located in Mexico. The trails “BUAP 2” and “La ruta Azteca” were created exactly one year ago when the MathCityMap team visited Mexico for the first time. Simone Jablonski, member of the MathCityMap team Frankfurt, answered us some questions about the trails.

Why did you create those math trails? Are there special attributes of those trails?

The trail “BUAP 2” was created for a teacher training with more than 75 Mexican teachers during the TEMBI V conference at University Puebla. Our aim was to give the participants a broad insight into the possibilities of MathCityMap, so we included different geometric topics like calculation on areas, slope of a ramp and height of buildings.

The trail “La ruta Azteca” was created on a free day which we used to visit the historical Aztecs pyramids in Teotihuacán. The pyramids offer great opportunity for calculations of their area and of the slopes of their steep staircases. Especially for tourists and families, this trail offers a great opportunity to combine mathematics and historical objects.

Particularly pleasing is the fact that we were able to create the trails in Spanish. A great help was the translation of the wizard tasks by our Spanish MoMaTrE project partners. It simplifies the use of MathCityMap – especially in an international context – immensely.

Do you have any other commentary on MathCityMap?

I have worked with MathCityMap since 2017 and mostly used it from the author’s perspective. It is great how the math trails motivate students and teachers to do mathematics. Sometimes I get the chance to run a math trail myself and after the first reward with points, I can fully share this motivation!  

In the next year, the MoMaTrE project will end with the international ROSETA conference. ROSETA is the acronym for Research on Outdoor STEM Education in the digiTal Age and this topic is exactly the conference’s focus.

Invited are all members of the educational and scientific STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) community which are interested and experienced in outdoor education. Apart from interesting lectures and workshops, you have the opportunity to present and discuss own ideas and contribute to the open-access conference proceedings.

The event is organized by the Erasmus+ Project MoMaTrE and co-funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. Through this, the MoMaTrE project can cover the participants’ costs for the conference partly.

If you are interested, please visit our conference website www.roseta-conference.eu. We are looking forward to your contribution!

The current Trails of the Month [there are both a Portuguese and an English version], were created in Porto, Portugal. Our MoMaTrE-Partner Ana Moura gave us an interview about the trails, MathCityMap and the ErasmusDay.

Please describe your trail. What differenciate your trail from others? 

This route is located in the Romantic Gardens of Palácio de Cristal, one of the most beautiful gardens in the city of Porto. It was laid out in the 19th century and has an area of ​​approximately 8 hectares, where we also can admire the magnificent panoramic views of the Douro river and the city. It is an almost circular route, which allow us to visit various charms of these gardens. The mathematical challenges involved run through several school levels, which intend to be inclusive to all elements of a family.

Please describe how your team presented MoMaTrE and MathCityMap on ErasmusDay. How many people tested MathCityMap?

The ErasmusDay event was publicized by some internet channels, namely those of one of the partners in the MoMaTrE project, the Polytechnic of Porto – School of Engineering, as well as in some social networks. MoMaTrE and MathCityMap were presented as, respectively, a project and an app that promote and assist in creating and conducting mathematical walks in this digital age [click here for more information]. We estimate that around 50 people participated in the city of Porto. They tested the app in groups, either in pairs of friends or father/mother and child, or in groups of students or families.

Why did you use the pirate narrative for this trail?

The option to use the narrative was to create more engagement in the younger ones, and to show the app’s versatility in the older ones.

Do you have any other commentary on MathCityMap?

MathCityMap brings together and cooks in a natural way three ingredients of our century: the digital age, the concern with the fight against sedentary lifestyle and the promotion of outdoor life, and the use of innovative teaching methods, particularly, in Mathematics.

More than 10.000 tasks have been created on the MathCityMap portal.

A Namibian teacher created the 10k-task during a MCM workshop last week.

MathCityMap provides tasks in more than 40 countries on all continents. Nearly 3600 users subscribed!

We are looking forward to a lot of new tasks!