Back to 8th Grade

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to an 8th grade math class. The woman who teaches the class goes to my church. The whole idea of it came out of the fact that 8th graders often find much of algebra stupid because it seems like there is no good use for it.

Basically what I did was go in and share with them a bit about a project I am working on. This included pictures, videos, and most importantly, a math problem that I actually solved for this project. It was a much more complicated problem than anything they had done before, but every concept in it was one that they had already learned such as systems of equations, the Pythagorean theorem, FOILing, and a finale of the quadratic equation.

I had a great time, and they were very excited and involved as I went through a problem that seemed nearly impossible to them. I basically went through the whole thing on adrenaline, and then kind of crashed energy wise an hour after getting back to work. It was, without a doubt, worth it.