Guess what! We just did a math project! The first one of the year actually, we have been learning about….. EXPONENTS!!

This is gonna sound crazy but the project we had to do was actually to create a CARD GAME that includes exponents. Well, actually, not that just includes exponents, it had to revolve around exponents and their laws. 

At the beginning of the unit we made a mind map about what we already knew about exponents and how we can use math in games. Now that I look back at my original mind map I learned so much more through out the project, I added the things I learned in blue text so here is the unit end mind map I created. The black text was my original mind map and the blue text, as I already said, is the text I added at the end of the unit. When I first made this mind map I asked some big big questions that we made together as a class. I answered them through what I knew and what I didn’t know and then expanded on those thoughts at the very end:

So, with this new found knowledge of exponents and games and how to mesh them together, we had to create our own. Now, you may be asking, how does making a game have anything to do with math? Here is my answer, trust me!! It definitely plays a huge part and it is quite difficult to include. Me and my partner Kyle decided to theme our game around the idea of our program, PLP and call the game P.O.P., People of PLP. We had our number cards which looked like iPads since that is what we learn on:

We have our character cards which feature a picture of each person in our class and their colour of choice:

Once we decided on what our cards would like it was time to create some rules and instructions for our game. This took a few drafts. The first one was a bit too complicated and we were forgetting some things. Second draft was much much better except we weren’t using enough mathematical/exponent language. The third drat was almost perfect! I mean, everything can get better than it was before but it was definitely our best draft as well as our final one.

Once this unit was over and we had showed our games to our classmates as well as the grade 10’s, we were evaluated by a rubric that looked like this:

Basically, those complicated sentences you see through our the left side are the curricular competencies for math. There are 6 of them on our runbric but i am only going to reflect on four and how I have grown on them through out the unit.

#1. Use logic and patterns to solve puzzles and games

I have played so many card games in my lifetime of 14 years and I knew that a lot of them included math skills and patterns to be able to solve them. But I never really though about it while playing. After making our own card game and inserting math patterns in to it, I can’t wait to go and try to figure out the patterns of different card games so maybe, just maybe, I can win against my brother!!

#2. Demonstrate and apply mental math strategies

Before learning about exponents and all of that jazz, I could definitely do mental math, I would even go as far to say I was pretty good at it. But there is always room to improve. Each day of doing exponents in class, I actually think my mental math got better and better.

#3. Explain and justify mathematical ideas and decisions* Represent mathematical ideas and decisions in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic for

This one was a bit of a different learning experience for me. I learned from this one to use it more. We didn’t use this competency a lot in out game and it made me realize how important it is. It can be a lot easier for people to understand what is happening when it is just a bunch of numbers clumped together. This is definitely something I want to work on.

#4. Connect mathematical concepts to each other and  to other areas and personal interests

We designed our cards around the idea of our class, PLP. Of course this is something we are both quite interested in and it was super cool to connect something mathematical, to something not mathematical and to make it more fun.

So yeah! This was a great unit and I am so happy we did such a different projects and as you can see I learned a lot!

~ Your Bloggin friend, Jordyn