Seem familiar – the feeling, if not the exact words?

Here’s an answer: “What if we’re building a house with a basement? How many truckloads of earth will we need to haul away? What will it cost? What is the angle the home’s sewage pipe needs to make with the sewer? How steep should the roof be?” These are just a few of the hundreds of math questions needing answers, from the basement to the peak of the roof in building a house!

There are many areas of life – occupations, managing a family budget, etc., etc. – where math is a necessity.

This Whitman Randolph website shows the practical side of math and stimulates the minds and imaginations of students, constantly and consistently demonstrating applications in numerous phases of life. How do we do it?

We make math a game – the game of life. After the placement exam, the student is assigned a starting place in the curriculum and a hypothetical starting salary, at so much per week. As they finish each section they

• Receive their week’s salary
• Pay taxes and expenses
• Deposit a portion in a savings account, at compound interest.
• Get a small salary increase

All hypothetical, of course, and all in context of full support for Common Core middle school math and high school-level Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry.