Environmental education through mathematics : suggested activities for primary & early secondary schools

Abstract

This dissertation seeks the infusion of Environmental Education through Mathematics, in a thematic approach. A study on environmental education and mathematics, has been carried out, and a pack including activities for Primary and early Secondary Schools were presented. The pack designed, forming a set of 7 themes, focus on the idea of "The Town/Village". The end result will be the construction of a set of models, thus forming a town or a village, depending on the students' choice, and around with mathematical topics are included. This is meant to be a teachers' pack of ideas how the teacher can provide such an integration. Links to other academic subjects are included. Handouts are included to help the teacher present certain ideas. The themes treated include the individual, his or her family and the village s/he lives in, thus this will eventually help the learner to have a sense of his surroundings. The approach adopted is based on daily life experience and play. The ideas in the pack were tried initially in Skola Sajf '97. This experience gave me more ideas on how I could integrate mathematics with environmental education. Some of these ideas are found in the pack. The final version of the pack was distributed to a number of teachers. Feedback was taken into consideration and discussed in the evaluation and concluding comments.