One highlight in our mathematics learning last week was an open problem called, "36 Fences." Students worked together to find which shapes would yield the largest and the smallest areas if all had a perimeter of 36 metres (36 fences). Students used toothpicks to represent miniature fences, built shapes on large grid paper, and drew their shapes on regular sized grid paper. We discussed the problem as a class and found out that a square will always yield a larger area than a rectangle with the same perimeter, but that a circle will yield the largest area of all the shapes. A wedge shape would yield one of the smallest areas, yet a shape that is turned on it's end (so it makes a tower reaching from the ground) would yield the smallest area on the ground.
In Science, students completed a peer-evaluation of each others' design projects of the circulatory system. In order to earn a 4 out of 4, the project needed to look like a heart and contain all the parts of the heart assembled accurately. Students were asked to complete the peer-evaluation in silence in order to make their own decisions regarding the criteria and prevent swaying or being swayed by each others' opinions.
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