Tags: Learning Tools, Mathematics, School Activities
By Anna Valmero
DOLORES, QUEZON – If all school gardens were as colorful and informative as the one at Dolores Central Elementary School, maybe more students would be encouraged to solve problems about prime and composite numbers or compute using fractions.
I chanced upon the elementary school during a visit to Quezon last holiday break and saw the variety of decorations in their gardens based on subjects. It was just a typical morning walk with my dog at the empty school that turned out to revive my interest in basic math concepts.
Of all the decorations in their parks, the Mathematics garden stood out because of the interactive and colorful displays. The math garden is located near the main building and the school’s vegetable garden of pechay and legumes.
Usually these kinds of displays are confined inside the walls of the classroom so bringing them outside is a good way to popularize the subject.
What caught my interest was the crafty use of the limited garden space to show a huge analog clock that seemed painted on a brown mocha cake on the ground and the use of recycled wooden blocks to teach kids about prime and composite numbers.
To refresh your memory, a prime number is the result of two multiplication factors, the number one and itself, while a composite number has other factors in addition to one and itself.
There were also word problems painted on the wall and one painted on a flower-shaped display asking about percent computation. There were also simple equations of fractions and decimals that would require one to compute for the answer because there are no multiple choices like in exams.
There were also wall portraits of great Mathematicians such as Leonardo Da Vinci, known for the use of geometry in his paintings; Pythagoras, who postulated the Pythagorean theorem; Charles Babbage, who invented the first computer; and Archimedes, who approximated the value of pi (3.14) using the method of exhaustion.
Overall, the simple displays were able to spark my interest on elementary math and I bet it had the same effect on the schoolchildren and their parents. Enticing kids to learn math outside classes and exposing them to its applications like solving simple problems is indeed a creative way to erase the fear and have fun with the subject.
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