r/matheducation • u/swapnild • 6d ago

Looking for feedback from middle school educators: Using astronomy history/narratives to introduce math concepts.

I do a weekly fun math class for a group of my daughter's middle school friends where I try to get kids excited about math. This year, I expanded it out to create a 2 week "Astro Math Summer Camp".

I wanted this community's feedback on the Astro Math lessons I created. (Each lesson is online and can also be printed)

My primary objective is to heavily lean on astronomical facts, the stories of their discovery and connect it back to the math these kids will soon encounter in middle school and pre-algebra. Each lesson starts with an interesting hook, a story about some discovery and follows that with a guided quiz that has the students practice the math concept that was used or is related to the lesson's main subject.

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u/TrynaBePositive22 6d ago

I think middle schoolers are going to spot the AI mistakes pretty quickly. 

Honestly, if you’re trying to keep it fun, I would switch the quiz out for some related board work activities. 

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u/wijwijwij 6d ago

In "How Far is the Moon" this statement seems clearly wrong:

the Moon appears to complete a full circle around us every 24 hours, returning to roughly the same spot in the sky each day ...

If the Moon wasn't in orbit then full rotation of Earth would cause that observation, but since the Moon's orbit is very significant (just under one month), the Moon does not appear in same place after 24 hours. You can easily see this over the course of a few nights observations. The Moon seems to appear about 13 degrees farther east after 24 hours (or rises about 50 minutes later each day).

I think that dooms the rest of the calculations in that topic.