Math at zoo? ... at ballpark? Learning goes 24/7
Attendees at the kickoff for
the “Learning 24/7: Community as Classroom”
program listened to various presentations from representatives
of facilities participating in the program, including
this one on Weathervane Community Playhouse.
A Stan Hywet Hall tour guide
explains to a group of parents how extra math activities
are now an optional part of the family-friendly “Franklin”
tour to help with a local initiative to strengthen math
skills among middle-school-age children.
Photos courtesy of Rick
Zaidan
By Holly Pupino
WEST AKRON — Many parents will take their children to places such as the Akron Zoo, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP), the library and an Akron Aeros game this summer. Now, practicing a few middle school-level math concepts can be slipped into these fun outings, and the children probably won’t even know they’re learning.
“Learning 24/7:
Community as Classroom” is
a collaboration among the Summit Education Initiative
(SEI), Akron Public Schools and area cultural and recreational
organizations. The goal is for parents to extend
learning beyond the school day
and help reinforce challenging math concepts that current
fifth- through ninth-grade students will face on the
Ohio Graduation Test administered during 10th grade.
As the math skills expected of
U.S. children become more demanding, achievement testing
becomes more high stakes and U.S. children fall further
behind other nations in math and science education,
it becomes more important to stretch the school day,
said Judy Hummel, SEI executive director.
“Our kids only go to school
5-1/2 hours a day, 180 days a year,” she said.
“But today, more than ever, they need to learn
24/7.”
The program kicked off June 14
at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in West Akron as parents
got a taste of the educational opportunities awaiting
their children throughout the community. In addition
to the zoo, CVNP, Akron-Summit County Public Library
and Akron Aeros, participating organizations include
MetroParks, Serving Summit County; the Ohio & Erie
Canalway; Weathervane Community Playhouse; and CYO Camp
Christopher.
Here’s how Learning 24/7
works. Whenever visiting one of the participating organizations,
such as taking a tour of Stan Hywet, watching an Aeros
game, visiting a park or seeing a youth production at
Weathervane, simply ask for a “Learning 24/7”
activity brochure. The brochure will explain the math
challenge at that venue. The child can work on the activity
alone or with an adult’s help — at his or
her own pace.
The activities cover a number
of different math curriculum benchmarks. For example,
at Canal Park, the goal is to calculate elapsed time
from the beginning to the end of three innings. At Mary
Campbell’s Cave in Gorge MetroPark,
the challenge is to measure the width of the cave using
footsteps and then convert those footsteps into meters.
At the zoo, the mission is to approximate and interpret
rates of change on a graph to determine the distance
and time it takes the Komodo dragon to reach his dinner,
an unsuspecting chicken 30 feet away.
When taking the family-friendly
“Franklin & You” tour at Stan Hywet,
one of the three “Learning 24/7” activities
focuses on probability. The student is to imagine that
he and Franklin, the youngest Seiberling family member
to grow up at Stan Hywet, are sneaking into the mansion’s
dark kitchen at night in hopes of pulling a chocolate
chip cookie from the cookie jar. But chocolate chip
is one of four cookie varieties in the jar. The student
must determine his odds of grabbing a chocolate chip
cookie. Elsewhere on the tour, children will be asked
to identify the various polygons (hexagon, pentagon,
scalene triangle, etc.) in the solarium’s ceiling.
At Weathervane Community Playhouse,
the challenge is to spot geometric figures such as an
obtuse, acute and right angle, parallel and perpendicular
lines, and an arc in the set design or on a prop. As
an added bonus, the activity brochure reminds children
that the “Character Counts” traits they
learn at school relate to being a respectful audience
member.
At Camp Christopher, children
enrolled in the day and resident camps this summer will
be using pedometers to calculate the distance of their
hikes and will convert those steps into yards
and miles.
“On our hikes, we were
already teaching kids about the geology and history
of the area. Now we have a little math worked in, too,”
said John Litten, camp director.
Some of the organizations will
post the answers on their Web sites. Children who attempt
the measuring challenges found at every library branch
can enter their names in prize drawings.
Bob Bowers, deputy superintendent
of the Ohio Department of Education, told the audience
of parents and educators at the program launch that
math standards have gotten consistently higher during
the past 30 years. He cited one math problem from last
year’s Ohio Graduation Test that required several
problem-solving skills before even getting to the calculation
of numbers.
According to Bowers, 15-year-olds
in the United States ranked 24 out of 29 in math literacy
and problem solving skills among developed nations.
“We are spending half of
our time in the classroom learning what we should have
learned last year,” he said.
A secondary goal of Learning
24/7 is to get parents more engaged in helping their
middle-school-aged children with math. Bowers noted
that many adults have a double standard when it comes
to school subjects. They may readily joke at a party
about being “math challenged,” but few adults
would confess to other adults that they have trouble
reading or writing.
“It used to be that parents
started looking into hiring a tutor to help their children
with math around ninth or 10th grade, but now many
parents feel unable to help their
children with sixth-grade math,” said Diettra
Engram, SEI program manager. “Our goal with this
program was to make the math parent-friendly as well.”
Teams of educators and the staff
members from the nonprofit organizations developed the
Learning 24/7 activities. The challenges were then tested
on Akron Public School students.
While summer is a good time to
begin the program, Learning 24/7 activities will remain
in place year-round. Participants will be expected to
pay the same admission costs, if applicable, when visiting
the participating venues.
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