‘Geometry Town’ exercise gives students an alternative look at
various shapes involved with geometry
KRISTEN TOLLESON – SPECIAL TO THE FREE LANCE
HOLLISTER
When people hear “geometry town” some might think of a big math setup, but for a fifth-grade class at Gabilan Hills Elementary, it was a town placed on a few desks in a classroom.
Teacher Connie Childers put together the geometry town project, which allowed her students to make a town made out of paper. Students were placed into eight groups with four students in each. Groups were given a budget of $100,000.
Students had to make a town where each shape was worth a different value. Each team had to fill out a builder’s specification sheet and a group building budget. Childers called the project is a good concept of geometry.
“No group got close to spending their budget,” Childers said.
The exercise gave the kids a different way of learning various shapes involved with geometry. The teacher picked a shape, and the students had to point it out in the town.
When the project started nearly four weeks ago the town was called PolyhedronVille. This past Tuesday, each group came up with a new name and the class majority voted for Cloverfield.
The students included almost everything imaginable in their town such as houses, an aquarium, a police station, a jail, a library and trees. Some of the shapes found in the town were pentagons, squares and triangles.
Childers said she believes the students would learn more with such a hands-on project. The classmates interacted with one another and discussed the part they finished for the geometry town project.
“The students have enjoyed doing this project,” Childers said.
Students had to recite to the rest of the class the value for their part of the town, based on the shapes they used. The approximate value of Cloverfield was nearly $473,000.
Childers said the kids will remember this project and learn from it. She noted how she had run into a former student of hers who told her the geometry town project left an impact on him, she said.
She plans to keep doing the geometry town project for future classes, she said.
Childers said her favorite part of Cloverfield was the clothesline and hot tub that one of the groups had placed in a backyard.
The Hot Wheels seemed to be the most popular with the students. One student brought in a toy limousine and placed it in front of the hotel. “I don’t know where they find some of this stuff,” she said.
While students learned the different shapes that are involved with geometry, another lesson was how to work with others and how to budget money.
The students looked proud of what they had accomplished.
They have a test today, and Childers hopes this project will help them remember the different shapes for it, she said.
