Transcript

This is our classroom Math Investigation Station. This is where a lot of our hands on math happens. Throughout the unit, we do a lot of hands on learning. Theres always a culminating activity. For this unit, were working on a cereal box project. In this project, students are assigned the task of drawing the net for a cereal box, cutting it out, folding it together, and constructing a 3D form. 

You can see on my right that there are several examples of 3D forms. We started this investigation by having students cut out 3D forms without giving them any clues or information about what each form was. They had to construct the form and then they had to present their form to the class. We taught them vocabulary such as vertices, edges, and faces. We had them count each of these in their 3D form and then we had them start to classify their 3D forms. Some of them are pyramids, some of them are prisms, and we defined what is a prism and what is a pyramid. This is also math vocabulary that gets added to our learning wall.

Once they understand 3D forms, they can start to design their own 3D form for their cereal box. This is where media literacy starts to be involved in our math investigation. We talked about the typical shape that a cereal box usually comes in and why this is effective. We talked about the space on a shelf in a store, how attractive it is to an audience, and how much can fit inside. This is where we get into the concepts of volume and mass. We learned about how to calculate the volume and how to calculate the mass. 

Then they start to design what they want to put on each of the faces of the 3D shape. We look at the different types of advertising strategies, the different design strategies, and we use the Media Triangle that the students have already looked at for one of their previous projects. We talk about the production, the media text, and the audience. The students use all of this to design a cost effective and attractive cereal box that would be marketable in a store.