Pop Box Project: Part 3 – Trade Show and Reflections

This post is the last in a series of posts detailing my take on the Pop Box Design Project. Previously: Part 1, Part 2. Click here for the inspiration.

At last, students’ prototypes were coming to life. The penultimate lesson was a (productive) mess of paper, tape, and running to other classrooms to borrow meter sticks.

I wanted to give students an opportunity to share their hard work with other teachers and students, so earlier in the week, I began organizing a trade show. In terms of physical set-up, preparation was minimal; the biggest hurdle was finding volunteers for students to interact with. I sent out an email inviting other staff members to join, and ended up with about 6 staff participants; another math teacher also very kindly volunteered his Grade 11 class to join in.

Pop Box Design: Part 2 – Brainstorming, Design, Construction

This post is the second in a series of posts detailing my take on the Pop Box Design Project. Click here for Part 1, and click here for the inspiration.

Last day, after a few lessons of stirring up ideas related to packaging design and strengthening understanding of the concepts of surface area and volume,  students were introduced to the unit project: Design a more effective pop box. Although we had previously focused on comparing the efficiency of different packages in terms of amount of material used and percentage of wasted space, for their design projects students could choose to focus instead on creating a more unique and interesting package if they felt it would increase sales. Students left the classroom buzzing as ideas already started to emerge.

Pop Box Project: Part 1 – Introduction

For our last unit of Foundations of Mathematics 10, I decided to tackle something that scared me: a project. The outcomes – determining surface area and volume – were well-suited to practical application, and I had been eyeing Nat Banting‘s soft drink project for a while now; moreover, I felt that a strong collaborative culture was finally taking root among this group of students, and that they were prepared to work on a larger, more complex problem together. (Actually, I am sure that they were prepared for this much earlier – I am still in the process of learning to trust my students, and this was a major test of the water for me). In short, it was time to take the plunge. This post is the first in a series of three detailing the experience. (Click here for Part 2.)

A small moment to remember

Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries. – Simone Weil

I was substitute teaching today for a group of students I had taught last semester. I noticed that one of the girls had new glasses, and I told her that they looked nice. She replied, surprised, “You’re the only teacher that’s noticed, and you don’t even teach me.”

Not pretending to be a hero. There have undoubtedly been countless occasions that I’ve been blind when I should have seen. Just tying a knot in my mind to notice, amidst the chaos, the students I’m not seeing in my own classroom.