Will You Live to be 110?

Proposal Summary

"Will You Live to be 110?"

Project Directors: Katie May, Julie McPhail, Ashley Welch

Budget: $2,494.78

      The quality of mathematics education in the United States falls short.  According to the latest TIMSS report, American students rank below 14 other countries from Europe and Asia in math performance.  Americans also face the inequitable dissemination of information and resources regarding their personal health, such that low socioeconomic and non-white Americans live significantly shorter lives than their fellow middle-class or white citizens.  To address both of these issues at one local high school, which lags behind statewide levels in math TAKS scores and has a large population of underserved youth, we developed a 5-week Algebra II unit entitled "Will You Live to be 110?"  This unit combines hands-on, relevant, and contextualized benchmark mathematics lessons on functions and statistics with a group project that will deepen students' mathematical understanding and reshape their views of mathematics, while leading them on a mission to discover more about lifespan and improve the community's health.

      Using resources already available at Crockett High School, including the Dell Media Lab, the students will explore mathematical concepts related to life expectancy. The project will be conducted primarily in-class, but will culminate with a trip to city hall, where students will present their research to members of the community at a public meeting. Successful implementation of this unit will result in higher mathematics TAKS scores for Crockett students, as well as a greater depth of understanding of how math relates to real societal issues. In addition, the community will benefit as students carry their knowledge about healthy life choices and their effects on longevity back to their friends and family, thereby empowering a community in need to make informed decisions about their quality of life.

Description

            In our "Will You Live to be 110?" unit, we combine relevant benchmark lessons with meaningful assessments, activities, and political action.  Mixing benchmark lesson days with project days gives a deeper context to the mathematics involved and makes it meaningful to the students.  True learning takes place when knowledge is applied, and our unit allows students to immediately apply what they learn to an issue that affects everyone.  This unit transforms students into professionals by requiring them to complete the same kinds of investigations undertaken by mathematicians and scientists.  In completing their projects, students will also learn what they can do to improve their health and the overall health of those in their community.

Our unit incorporates two main components:  benchmark lessons and a group project.  The benchmark lessons cover the basic skills that students need to get started on their research.  We engage students with interactive lessons on various statistical topics including standard deviation, mean, median, mode, correlation, regression, and residual plots.  We also give a brief overview of exponential functions and population growth, and we discuss financial models, since financial security affects lifespan.  Once we finish the first few benchmark lessons, we will place students into groups of three and each group will choose a lifespan-related topic that they think affects their community.  Our unit project requires students to gather both quantitative and qualitative data.  Two days will be spent in the computer lab, where students will gather data on their topic.  For the qualitative portion of the project, we will bring in professionals for students to interview.  The professionals we hire will depend on the nature of the topics chosen by students (i.e. doctors, actuaries, nutritionists).  Students will also conduct informal polls in their communities regarding their topics.  Once students gather their data, conduct their interviews, and collect their community data, they will write a detailed report that describes their findings.  In addition to the written report, each group will give an in-class presentation on their results.  Students will receive feedback from the teacher and from their fellow students on their presentations.  Using this feedback, they will modify their presentations if needed and brainstorm recommendations for how to educate people in the community about their topic.  At the conclusion of the project, the class will take a trip to City Hall where each group of students will present their findings and recommendations to a city government official and the general public at a public meeting.  Talking to a city official, and the public, will show students that math plays a big role in evaluating community issues, but that we must combine data with creative ideas to solve community problems.  Most students never see school math used outside of their mathematics classrooms, so applying their math projects to a broad issue like community health will change, or at least challenge, students' perceptions of mathematics.  It is our hope that this unit will convince students that math involves more than the memorization of formulas and procedures.  After the City Hall trip, each student will write an individual paper on what they learned about mathematics and health during the unit and what they plan on changing in their own lives as a result of what they learned.  Students must also write about how, if at all, completing this project changed their conceptions of mathematics. 

 Rationale

            Longevity involves many factors. Students will use quantitative and qualitative data to analyze how factors like lifestyle and dietary choices, risky behaviors, proximity to loved ones, socioeconomic status, and family history contribute to lifespan.  In America, the current trend is troubling: people of color and those with low socioeconomic status have significantly shorter lifespans than their white, middle-class counterparts. Concurrently, there is a strong push in mathematics education to seek out project-based units that are relevant and address a wide spectrum of math curriculum, and this unit is an excellent fit toward achieving this goal.

            Crockett High School has a particular need for this kind of in-depth study for two reasons. Only 52% of students at Crockett pass the math portion of the TAKS test compared with a state average of 75%.  Second, 72% of students are classified as "at-risk" based on low socioeconomic status, which correlates closely with low average life expectancies. A focused mathematical unit on lifespan will improve math TAKS scores at Crockett and will serve the community in two important ways.  The students will take the lessons they learn about the effects of making healthy choices back to their communities through discussions with friends and family.  They will also be presenting their findings at a public meeting at City Hall, which will have an even broader community impact.  

            This unit will allow Algebra II students at Crockett to explore critical mathematics topics in a context that will have lasting positive effects on both their math competency and statewide assessments, but perhaps even more importantly, the lives of the students and the members of their communities.  If America is serious about trying to level the playing field on the longevity issue, we absolutely must start at the grass-roots level by bringing units such as "Will You Live to be 110?" into traditionally underserved communities such as those found at Crockett High School.

Potential Impact

            The potential effects of this project are far reaching.  First, this project will address students with below average mathematics TAKS scores with its emphasis on mathematical concepts and application of math to real-life situations.  The students will have a greater mathematical understanding after this unit, which should be evidenced in future TAKS test scores.  This unit, especially with its focus on exponential functions and statistical concepts, will be very beneficial for a variety of students going into careers that are not strictly math-related.  These concepts would be advantageous to future statisticians, economists, and doctors, to name a few.  Thus, an upcoming workforce will be more equipped and competitive, which will be an asset to the community.  The exposure to technology and community involvement in this unit will additionally benefit every student.

            Another goal of the unit is to have students explore life expectancy and health issues.  As the students uncover truths about their life expectancy, health, and other personal choices, these findings could not only impact the individual student's life, but also their family, and in turn, the community.  For instance, if students are able to see the harmful effects of obesity, which is a medical problem in this country, they can make wiser decisions about diet and exercise.  Thus, the health of these students and others in the community, such as family and friends, can be influenced by the students' research.

            Three math teachers and the statistics teacher will be impacted by this unit, as many of the Algebra 2 students will be in their classroom next year and will have a deeper understanding of basic statistical concepts and a variety of functions.  In addition, the health and anatomy teachers will benefit from the students' interest in health issues, as they relate to life expectancy. Thus, the school will be impacted by the project, along with the students and community.

Evaluation Plan

            For us to consider our unit a complete success, multiple goals must be met.  First, we want students to gain a deeper understanding of mathematics.  We will evaluate our success in meeting this aim using various assessments including prior knowledge checks, in-class activities and assessments, take-home assignments, and a group project.  Watching our students present their findings at City Hall should reveal how confident they feel with the mathematical concepts learned in this unit.  Combining these forms of assessment and tracking individual student progress throughout the unit will give us a clear picture of how student learning took place and how much mathematics students learned.  We also expect to see increases on our students' mathematics TAKS scores as a result of completing our unit.  Our second purpose in teaching this unit involves changing, or at least challenging, students' conceptions of mathematics.  While conceptions prove difficult to quantify, what students write in their individual papers will tell us whether or not they gained a new perspective on mathematics while completing the unit.  Our third main objective entails students gaining valuable knowledge about lifespan.  We will use what students write in their individual papers and their group written reports and what they present to their class and to City Hall to assess this goal.  Since each group will choose a separate topic to research within lifespan, and each group will present their findings to the class, students should gain a broad base of knowledge about longevity simply from attending class on the in-class presentation days.  Finally, we want students to take what they learn and use it to benefit their community.  To achieve this goal, we will take a trip to City Hall and students will present their findings to a government official and members of the general public at a public meeting.  In addition to this, we expect that students will hold more informal discussions with their friends and family members involving their lifestyle choices.

Project Calendar      

Dates of project: September 10, 2007- October 9, 2007

 

Budget

Item Description	Unit Price	Quantity	Total
TI-83 Graphing Calculator	$80.00	25	$2,000.00
Graph Paper Pack (20 sheets each)	$1.81	25	$45.25
Package of 100 3x5 index cards	$1.00	2	$2.00
Consulting Fee for Longevity Expert	$100/hour	2 hours	$200.00
School bus trip to City Hall	$200.00	1	$200.00
Poster Board, assorted colors, 48-pack	$47.53	1	$47.53
Resources already available to Crockett High School via school resources or free educational programs
Access to computer labs	no charge	frequent	0
Internet access	no charge	frequent	0
Rental of TI-Navigator Network System	no charge	1	0
Actuarial Expert	no charge	2 hours	0
25 Textbooks, (Algebra II, Larson et. al., 2003)	no charge	25	0
Total			$2,494.78

 

Project Staff Vitae

Katie May

7777 Oak Rd.

Anytown, CA 77777

777-7777

Katie@school.isd.org

 

Education

• The University of Texas at Austin

B.A. in Mathematics: Secondary Teaching Option

December 2007 GPA 3.81

 

Courses

• Math Content Courses: Calculus, Functions and Modeling, Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory, Probability, Applied Statistics, Foundation of Number Systems, Structure of Modern Geometry, Discrete Mathematics, Introduction to Number Theory, and Introduction to Real Analysis
• Education Courses: Step 1, Step 2, Knowing and Learning, Research Methods, Classroom Interactions, Perspectives on Science and Mathematics, Project-Based Instruction, Reading in Content Subjects, Adolescent Development
• Studied Spanish in Argentina in the Summer 2006 with a University of Texas program

Experience

• T.A. Brown Elementary, Austin, Texas
  Internship January 2005-May 2006
  Tutored struggling students in mathematics and science
  Prepared students for the TEKS exam
  Assisted the teacher in the classroom
• River City Youth Foundation, Austin, Texas
  Internship September 2006-present
  Assisted students with homework
  Led a reading group
  Mentored a 12 year old girl
  

• Spear One Productions, Dallas, Texas
  Part-time Marketing Intern Summers 2005, 2006
  Worked with marketing related programs
  Traveled with company to host marketing events
  

Honors

• Texas Valedictorian Scholarship Fall 2004, Spring 2005
• University Honors, Fall 2004 – Fall 2006
• College Scholar, Spring 2006 – Spring 2007
• AISD Scholarship, Spring 2006, Fall 2007, Spring 2007
• Raschke Scholarship, Fall 2007

 

 

Julie McPhail

7777 Elm Rd.

Anytown, CA 77777

777-7778

Julie@school.isd.org

 

 

Education               University of Texas at Austin   

2004-Present            B.S. in Mathematics (UTeach option)                           

                           Expected Graduation:  Fall 2007

                           GPA:  4.0

 

Mathematics           Introduction to Real Analysis                             Calculus I

Courses                   Structures of Modern Geometry                        Calculus II                   Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory                  Probability I

                                 Introduction to Mathematical Statistics   Applied Statistics

                                 Introduction to Number Theory             Discrete Mathematics

                                 Introduction to Algebraic Structures

 

Education               Step I                                                                  Step II

Courses                   Knowing and Learning                          Classroom Interactions

                                 Perspectives in Math and Science                      Research Methods

                                

Work                       Administrative Assistant                               

Experience              Kraft Foodservices, Coppell, TX 75063

                                 Summer 2006

  Entered and formatted data using Microsoft Excel

  Completed quarter reports for Kraft distributors

  Audited and updated files during office consolidation 

 

Functions and Modeling Teacher's Assistant                                  

The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78705

Fall 2006-Spring 2007

  Aided students during class

  Assisted teacher with class preparation and grading

  Conducted individual and group help sessions outside of class

 

Honors &                National Merit Finalist

Activities                 AISD Scholarship, 2005-Present

                                 University Honors, 2004-present

                           Actuarial Science Club member, 2004-2005

                           Pi Lambda Theta Honors Society member, 2005-present 

 

Ashley R. Welch

7777 Cypress Rd.

Anytown, CA 77777

777-7779

Ashley@school.isd.org

 

Certification               Secondary Mathematics Teaching Certificate                    2007

                                    University of Texas at Austin, UTeach

      Emphasis on reform teaching and project-based instruction

      Math Content Courses: Calculus, Probability, Applied Statistics, Matrices and Matrix Calculations, Foundation of Number Systems, Structure of Modern Geometry, Discrete Mathematics

      Education Courses: Step 1 and 2, Knowing and Learning, Research Methods, Classroom Interactions, Perspectives on Science and Mathematics, Project-Based Instruction

 

Education                  M.A. Degree, Anthropology, 3.7 GPA                                1999-2003

Stony Brook University (State University of New York)

      Passed the PhD Qualifying exam, proving proficiency to teach anthropology to university students

 

B.A. Degree, Magna Cum Laude, 3.74 GPA                      1995-1999

University of Southern California

      Anthropology Major

      Study of Women and Men in Society Minor

 

Teaching                    Guest Teacher                                                                       2006 - 2007

Experience                 Crockett High School, Del Valle Middle School, Young Scientists Program, AISD Travis County, TX

¤       Designed and implemented lessons on Probability, Quadratics, Ratio and Proportion, and Functions

¤       Focused on generative teaching, collaborative learning, inclusive design

 

Grants Received        National Sigma Xi Research Grant                                         2000   

SUNY Stony Brook IDPAS Research Grant                         2000

 

Publications               Welch, A.R. (2003).  The effects of food provisioning and human

                                     disturbance on the activity budgets of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis).  Master's Thesis, State University of New York at Stony Brook. 

 

Welch, A.R., Loudon, J.E., and Fuentes, A. (2001).  Male sexual strategies in a semi-free ranging group of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis).  Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. Suppl. 32: 163.

* References available upon request