Learning by degrees
Learning by degrees
K-12 math teachers get lesson in navigation
| CAPTION: Jane Nordberg/Daily Mining Gazette Michigan Tech University Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences R. Stephen Roblee (center) goes over some safety procedures of the MTU Research Vessel Agassiz June 23 at the Houghton County Marina. |
By JANE NORDBERG, DMG Writer
HOUGHTON — At what point do mathematical ability and navigational skills intersect? Apparently, right in the middle of the Portage Canal.
It was sink or swim for the educators-turned-students who participated in a week-long institute sponsored by the Copper Country Intermediate School District and the Western U.P. Center for Science, Math and Environmental Education.
“Mathematics and Navigation for Teachers” offered some local K-12 math teachers the opportunity to put their theory into practice, solving navigational problems while using math and instrumentation aboard the Michigan Tech University research vessel, Agassiz.
Jennifer Pera, a teacher of math for seventh through 12th graders at Jeffers High School in Painesdale, said the institute was a great hands-on way to test some basic mathematical theory.
“We would learn something in the classroom in the morning and that very afternoon we could go out and apply what we had learned,” she said. “It really reinforced everything we were learning to do it so quickly afterwards.”
Morning classes had the teachers studying waterway charts and plotting a course, measuring the angles to get the heading and using a divider to figure out the distance to be traveled, Pera explained. The resulting figure was converted to distance using the degrees, minutes and seconds of latitude and longitude.
“That’s where the math comes in,” she said, adding that anyone with a high school math background of geometry and arithmetic could do it.
In the afternoon, the teachers got a chance to test their math skills by charting a course based on their classroom work that morning.
“We’d draw a course on the chart, calculate our bearings, make compass corrections for air in the compass and on the boat, then feed all of that data into a GPS,” Pera said.
Despite all the room for error, she said the course instructor, MTU Associate Professor R. Stephen Roblee, was proud of their accomplishments their first venture out.
“The first time we calculated how long it would take and we were off by five seconds,” she said. “He was pretty surprised.”
Pera was accompanied by teachers from Houghton and Chassell as well as two from Watersmeet and teachers from Paradise and Menominee.
“In addition to being out on a boat on a nice, sunny week, and getting to learn something new, it was also great to be with other teachers and be able to discuss the ideas, working together and figuring out what we did wrong and right,” Pera said.
Although she teaches a wide range of grades and ages, Pera said she would be able to take even the most basic ideas from the workshop back to her classroom in the fall.
“So many times the kids ask ‘when are we ever going to use this?’” Pera said of her elementary school students who are learning to measure angles.
Thanks to this summer’s workshop, she’ll be able to tell them just how important those seemingly small units of measure really are.
“Every minute of latitude is like 600 feet, so when you’re navigating a boat, those little minutes and seconds are a big deal,” she said. Pera, with no nautical experience and no experience with a GPS system, said she wouldn’t trade her baptism by fire for anything.
“In a classroom, you’re restricted because you can’t take all the kids out on a boat like this and show them immediately the lessons you’ve just taught them,” she said. “In a perfect world, this is the way teaching would actually happen. It was a phenomenal experience.”
Jane Nordberg can be reached at jnordberg@mininggazette.com
Previous page: High speed chase ends in crash
Next page: Tall ship returns to Houghton