Students in Rebecca Pariso’s seventh-grade math class designed and created piñatas with specific volume and surface area constraints.
Courtesy: Rebecca Pariso
Last year, my seventh-grade class created at-scale drawings of cost-efficient cabins for an outdoor education camp. Using three-dimensional figures and proportional reasoning, my students designed and created piñatas with specific volume and surface area constraints. We completed many challenging test questions, such as: If eight and a half cups of flour are needed for five and three-quarter cups of sugar, how much sugar is needed for one cup of flour?
Such problems require higher-level thinking skills and a lot of grit. The number of students in my classroom who did not meet the standard on the state test was the lowest in nine years. The number of proficient students doubled compared with last year’s seventh-grade class.
Contrary to what you might…
