Page 15 - Autumn 2019 Echo draft v4

Mathematics 1133

Building a Sustainable Future
through Mathematics

on Tuesday, 12 November, three Year 9 students represented the College at
a Mathematics event in exeter, where they attended a number of workshops
based on using Mathematics to build a sustainable future. The day was led
by a former Ivybridge Community College teacher, Margaret harding, who
now works for the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme.
The day started with a talk from two employees of Midas Construction regarding job opportunities within the
building industry.
Students were then split into groups to start the first of four tasks. In the first task the students were given a
specific number of lego bricks to make as many tables and chairs as possible. The aim of the task was to find
out how many of each product they could make to achieve the most profit. The number of bricks was then
increased and the same task done again. In the second task students were asked to discuss whether putting a
tunnel under Stonehenge was viable, what would be the best route, what challenges would be encountered
and the impact on the local area. They then needed to
work out how big it needed to be and how long it would
take to build. The third task was on grey-water, and which
type of house would be the most self-sustaining. The final
task was looking at graph information. Students discovered
that people were easily misled when
reading graphs by how they were drawn
and labelled. They learnt the importance
of putting titles and correct axis names.

Throughout the day students worked
collaboratively with students from other
schools. Tokens were awarded for
justifying their reasons well, good
explanations, excellent team work,
leadership qualities, listening well and
asking good questions, with students from
Ivybridge Community College achieving
the most tokens.