Math in the city: designing a math trail for high school students

Bossema, F.G.; Zwetsloot, C.P.A..; Smeets, I. (2023)

Part of book or chapter of book

This chapter describes the development of a math trail for high school students. In 2016, we developed this trail through Leiden (The Netherlands) during a student project for the Science Communication and Society specialization, a track for master students at the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. Our aim was to provide a guided trail through the city that links everyday sights to mathematical concepts within the curriculum of high school students between 13 and 15 years old. The entire project was carried out in 3 weeks. We did background research, consisting of literature reviews, target audience surveys with school children, and focus groups with teachers. Based on the conclusions from this background research, we developed questions that suited both the goal to make the math trail a fun experience that makes math less abstract and the goal to include questions from across the curriculum. In this chapter, we would like to share our insights from the background research and our experiences in developing a math trail. We moreover aim to provide those who are interested in designing a math trail in their city with a practical step-by-step plan and checklist.

• All authors: Bossema, F.G.; Zwetsloot, C.P.A..; Smeets, I.
• Editor(s): Hartkopf, A.M.
• Date: 2023-01-01
• Title of host publication: World Scientific Series on Science Communication; Handbook of mathematical science communication
• Pages: 53 - 72
• ISBN (print): 9789811253065
• ISBN (electronic): 9789811253089
• DOI: doi:10.1142/9789811253072_0005
• Name: 3