Planning a City Made Easy with Wipebook Flipcharts
Mark McLenaghan, Grade 9 Mathematics, Humberview Secondary School, Peel District School Board.
Students were asked to create a City Plan using the Wipebook chart or use Mindcraft.com the game.The purpose of the activity was to get the students thinking about area and perimeter by developing a birds eye view of their own personalized city. I got the idea from the document “Be a Minecraft City Planner!” created by Mighty Math Mama. I purchased on TeachersPayTeachers.com.
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Using Wipebook Flipcharts to differentiate the task
The students used the Wipebook to create their cities, the size and erasable ability of the Wipebook Flipchart allowed students to erase and edit their work throughout the exercise. They were asked to have a minimum number of buildings such as a school, a town hall, a police station, a hospital and places for people to live.The ability to wipe their ideas and edit their building differentiated the task.Some students did basic rectangular buildings, while others had multi sided buildings. They were asked to use a large die to randomize the lengths and number of sides each building had.
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Free Thinking and Community concerns
During this exercise students were able to use their imagination and communicate with one another. They had deep discussions about what is necessary in a town such as roads, sidewalks and traffic lights. They discussed the location of buildings within the city, such as where the fire station or police station should go.
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No answer is wrong!
Students were able to use the grid side of the Wipebook as a guide to help them calculate the area and perimeter without having to work with the formulas.Others used the grid to keep their lines straight and for using a scale to measure the length of the sides.
The students enjoyed the freedom of the open middle and ended task that this project provided them.
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