Professional Learning Goals

• Reduce mathematical anxiety, particularly among those who hate math and are at most risk to not graduate high school
• Increase design creativity
• Link curriculum between mathematics and technology
• Increase collaboration between staff and students of different disciplines
• Show students and staff that it is okay to take risks while learning (and teaching!)

Activities and Resources

• Full day of release time to co-plan an activity
• Three days of collaborative team teaching in mathematics and tech classes
• Building of CO2 race cars
• Half-day debrief between students and teachers
• One period of presentation of final product and racing CO2 cars

Unexpected Challenges

• Creating mixed ability teams between Grade 10 and Grade 12 students was a challenge.
• Finding ways to allow all students to contribute to design was exciting.

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

• Grade 12 MHF4U students were able to explore and understand the concept of correlation.
• Grade 10 MFM2P students were introduced to Desmos.com from the experienced Grade 12 students.
• Grade 10 tech students partnered with math students to learn measurement and estimation techniques.

Sharing

• CO2 Car Races were held in the main lobby of the school outside of the community library. Many students and teachers who were not involved were invited to watch.
• Future plans have been made to refine the process and continue the project with the math and tech classes.
• Pictures of the event were shared to the school community via Twitter.

Project Evaluation

• Our project was successful. Feedback from the math students was that the process/project was the highlight of their semester.
• In the future, more time will be spent in the tech classroom so that all students can have a hand in creating the race cars.
• We plan to have tech students “teach” the math students how to use the machines in the tech classroom.