ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

So this summer during TMC I went to Hedge and John Mahlstedt’s middle school morning session. It was so much fun, and it inspired me to have a zombie apocalypse this year with my 6th grade students. This year is also my first year doing 6th grade, so I decided to do a mini-trial run (with hopes of expanding it next year). So, let it begin…

DAY 1 (45 min)- The students had just finished taking a test, and I was sitting at my desk when I said out loud, “Oh my gosh! I just got this crazy email..this is insane! I don’t know how to explain…Let me just show you this video clip that came with it…” The kids are intrigued. I showed them a short video that I actually found on YouTube about a fake newscast giving breaking news about a disease/chemical spill that resulted in zombie-like behavior. The kids were IMMEDIATELY discussing:

• Is it real!?
• We need weapons!
• Where is it happening?
• Who did you get the email from?
• We need guns! But seriously, it this real??
• How long do we have before the zombies get here?

I was hoping the students would ask that last question, and when they did I latched on. “Okay guys, we need to get a good idea of how much time we have before the zombies get here. The email said it started in the Central Mercado in Zone 1. Work with your groups and report back” (So, yeah I live in Guatemala, we have zones and “mercados”.)

However, this part didn’t really go as planned because I thought they would get math-y with it. Instead, they did what normal people would probably do in this situation and estimate off the top of their head: “3 hours, no 5 hours! Definitely not more than a day!”

So, in an effort to get them thinking more deeply, I googled how far away the school is from the Central Mercado, and that got them thinking about how fast the zombies could walk that distance. It turned into a whole-class exploration of multiple students pretending to be zombies and (per my request) some students timing how fast they could walk a few meters. From here, the students could connect the dots themselves to figure out that it would take about 12 hours for zombies to reach Colegio Maya (I personally think the students’ zombie walks were on the slow side. But I tried not to let my Walking Dead bias affect the students’ creativity.)

From here, I asked the students what they wanted to do next. One student wanted to stay put, another student wanted to drive home (towards Mercado Central...), and almost everyone else wanted to find a boat and go to Europe...interesting.

Me: “Well, majority rules! We need to steal a car so that we can drive to a boat and try to go to Europe! Now, we are going to go outside to scope out the cars with your team members.”

This was so much fun to see! The last 10 minutes of class I let the students choose two cars per each group to “escape” with. They were running around like their lives were dependent on it (because they were) and having great conversations about gas milage, durability, and maneuverability.

Let me just say that most of the kids knew pretty early on that this “zombie thing” wasn’t really real (especially after I started making them do math), but there were a few kids who were still slightly worried until I made them go to second period. I think it sealed it for them that there weren’t really any zombies if they still had to go English. 6th graders are adorably gullible.

DAY 2 (90 min)- The students were so excited to come to class today! The first thing I did was show them another video clip from Hedge and Mahlstedt to “update” them on the status of the crisis. It showed a destroyed downtown area and basic apocalypse chaos. (And just so you know, zombies freeze when we are not in math class, so we still have plenty of time before they arrive.) Now that the students have decided which cars to escape in, we have to figure out where we are going!

The night before I looked up the miles/gallon and tank capacity of their chosen cars. Because they are 6th graders, the information they wrote down about the cars was maybe not the most accurate. So I figured it would be easier if I looked up the stats versus having the students take class time to try to figure it out (especially the ones that were vague and just said things like “minivan” or “motorcycle”).  With this information, they were just about ready to try to figure out how many miles they could go in their car when I threw them a curve ball: “You don’t think that you have a full tank of gas, do you? That wouldn’t be realistic!”

Using the gas gauge pictures that Hedge and Mahlstedt provided during TMC, I had students randomly select two (one for each car). You either got really lucky (about ¾ a tank left) or really unlucky (1/10 a tank left). I let them choose which gas gauge went with each car, and they were off trying to figure out how many miles they could drive. Admittedly, this was very time consuming. I had spent about 2 weeks on proportions, but this was the first time they had to deal with so much information upfront: miles/gallon, tank capacity, gas gauge, two cars, etc. Plus, the problem was a two-step problem. So once one group figured it out (with some prodding from me), I sent them around to other groups to help out. After they had figured out how far they could go with their specific car and that amount of gas, I sent them another curve ball: “You don’t think it’s going to be that easy do you?! It’s a zombie apocalypse! Of course things are going to go wrong!”

I downloaded an app on my ipad called “spinny wheel” and I created what I called “The Wheel of (mis) Fortune”. There were about 6 options on the wheel all having to do with gas levels

• You found a gas station, you gain 20% more gas.
• Other teams stole your gas, you lost 35%.
• Your car is leaking gas, you lost 47%
• etc.

Each group had to spin the wheel twice (one for each car), and then calculate the distance they could go with this new information. The students loved spinning the wheel and they also loved watching other groups get bad news... so sweet :)

This second time around that students had to calculate the miles their car could travel went a lot smoother since the main mental work was done the first time. But, I liked this step because it gave the students some repetition to let the process sink in a little, and I got to re-teach the concept to a few students who slipped through the cracks the first time.

When students finished figuring out how far their cars could go, this is where the real debating happened. In the final step of the zombie apocalypse, I had students pull out google maps and figure out where they were going to travel. It had to be a group decision, and they could go only the number of miles afforded by the car that could travel the least number of miles (unless they decided to ditch that car and go on with only one). During the last 15 minutes of class, they were to give a 1-2 minute presentation on how far they could travel, where they decided to go, and why. At the end of class, students would vote on which group survived the apocalypse, and you could not vote for your own group. Students were so passionate about their survival strategies that I most often had to cut the groups off after 2-3 minutes just so that we could get to every group!

Overall, I really enjoyed the activity. It was a really engaging idea and a great way for students to apply proportions to a situation they could (somehow) really relate to. All you have to do is mention zombie apocalypse to a group of 6th graders, and you will get a seemingly never ending debate going. Next year I am hoping to expand this project by a day or two by adding the elements of food and water. There is so much that could be done here, and I think the students would enjoy playing with the topic for a little bit longer as well. Hedge, Mahlstedt, you guys are the best! Thanks again for the wonderful ideas and resources!

First Days of School!

The first days of school were crazy this year (crazy awesome)! Just to give you a heads up on what my situation is like, I work at a private international school in Guatemala. There are about 350 kids total, and that is from K-12. Because the school is so small, I am teaching 3 subjects: Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and 6th grade....I've got ALL the ages. Before this year, I was working at a large public high school in Texas where I only taught Geometry, so this year is quite the change.

So here was my plan for my three subjects. For all three subjects, I made a "16 things you should know about me" slide show. (The idea I got from John Mahlstedt at TMC two years ago) It went over GREAT with Geometry and Pre-Calculus because they thought a few of the slides were hilarious...I may have mentioned my grandmother on 3 of the 16 slides. And yes, one of the slides detailed my most embarrassing moment of running full-speed into a tree when I was in middle school. So, they got to know me pretty well. The 6th graders didn't seem to think it was so funny, but I haven't quite pinned down how much sarcasm I can really use with them yet (if any). After that, the plan deviated a bit depending on the subject.

6th graders-
I am having them do Estimation180 as their warm-ups. They got SO into it, it was awesome! And, they got really close to Andrew Stadel's height, so I was impressed. I also had them working on Fawn Nguyen's Noah's Ark problem. One of the girls literally used the words "so engaging" when describing the problem, and I had a huge math-party in my head. Only one group solved it by the end of class, but there were really good problem solving conversations happening. A few students actually asked if they could take it home to finish as homework, OMG sure!
In other news, things about 6th graders that I need to work on: 1) UGH, I think I need a hand signal of some sort to get their attention. 2) I definitely need to be that teacher that makes kids wait to ask questions until after instructions. Usually I am so thrilled with high schoolers when they have any questions at all that I will immediately answer anything. This is a bad idea in middle school. I am still learning.

Geometry-
This class only has 8 students in it. Pinch me. I'm having students do Number Talks for their warm-ups in Geometry. This is the first time I have tried it, and I really like it so far. The thought processes were interesting to hear, and I think it will get even better over time. Side note, the first NT is "are there more feet in a mile or seconds in a day?" Students in Guatemala don't know how many feet are in a mile because they use kilometers...

The "Get to know you" Activity was interesting- I called it 3C's. I gave each student a piece of construction paper. I had them take a marker and draw a line down the middle. On one side, I had them list 3C's: 1) Their favorite cartoon character 2) Their ideal car 3) Their ideal career. Then I had them trade papers with a partner, and repeat the following words outloud: "I am sorry. What I am about to do has no reflection on what I think of you as a person." And then I had them draw a portrait of the person they traded papers with on the other side of the construction paper....hehehe. After everyone was done, we had a gallery walk. When students saw something they liked on another person's paper, or if they had that in common, they put a check mark by it. It was nice for everyone to see at the end how many people identified with their answers.

I also had students in Geometry do the Stacking Cups activity that Dan Meyer blogged about. The engagement was definitely there, but I think it was too easy for them. I am making a mental note to step up my game for the Geometry students this year :)

Pre-Calculus-
One of my Pre-Cal classes has 18 students and the other one has 12,  so the atmosphere was very different in both. The first thing I did with them was Fawn Nguyen's Visual Patterns #1. There were students in class who had trouble finding the equation for the number of squares (n^2), and there were students who were writing recursive formulas for the number of toothpicks. Even though the gap was quite large, I think everyone found an entry point into the activity.

After a few "get to know you" activities, I had them do a simple version of Sam Shaw's Headbandz. I created heabandz for everyone that had parent function graphs and their equations. Students were instructed to find their partner. After this "simple version," I did a harder version where students had to match the graph and equation when there were transformations on the parent functions. I think it was both a great ice breaker for the class as well as a nice little review of Algebra 2 functions.

The last thing I did with Pre-Cal was a "What I learned last year in Algebra 2" chalktalk. This was a silent activity where students were writing on the whiteboard things that they remember from algebra 2. It ranged from small skills to large concepts, and students could build off of what others were writing. It lasted about 10 minutes. The coolest part of the activity was hearing students say, "I don't remember ANYTHING from Algebra 2" before the activity started and then hearing them say "WOW, we actually did learn all of that.." at the end.



Okay, my wrists hurt from typing. I know I did not attach any documents (mainly because 90% of what I did with all of my classes was taken from the MTBoS anyways!), but if you would like a copy of anything just let me know! Blog post #2, done! Peace out.

Why Blog?

Friends, Family, and random strangers online,

First off, I thought I would answer the question: why am I blogging? There are actually two answers to that question...

1) Andrew and I just moved to Guatemala City to teach math at an international school called Colegio Maya! It is the biggest adventure of our lives so far, and I think that blogging would be a great way to capture the experience, reflect on it, and savor it for years to come.

2) When I started working at Northbrook High School two years ago, my friends & colleagues (Connie, Claydon, and Andrew) introduced me to the wonderful world of the MTBoS (Math Twitter Blogosphere). For the past two years, I have been inspired by the blogs of math teachers online around the world, I have even been fortunate enough to meet them in person at TMC, and now I feel I am "grown-up enough" to contribute my own blog. I hope that by writing down my thoughts, ideas, and experiences in the classroom, I will not only (hopefully) inspire someone else but also be able to see my own progression as a teacher as I improve over time.

So, I would like to thank you ahead of time for reading my blog. It means a lot to me, really.
In the future, I hope to fill my blogs with more pictures, but right now this is what I have... enjoy!