Mathematics! Using ArcView GIS
NR 505 K-12 Project
Michelle Lassige and Elaine Giroux
Fall 1999

Goals of the Mathematics! Project

The goal of this project is to show students how they can learn mathematical concepts through the use of the ArcView Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Students will focus on the mathematical concepts presented and use the GIS to address those concepts. During the lessons students will use data containing information about the State of Colorado to solve mathematical problems.

Prerequisites and Instructions for Teachers

All the data necessary for working through the lessons can be downloaded before beginning each exercise. The data is in the form of ArcView shapefiles and project files.
A worksheet for each lesson is also provided. The worksheets are designed to be printed for the students to utilize during the lessons. A link to the worksheet is provided within the table of contents as well as at the beginning of each lesson.

Detailed instructions of each lesson are provided for using the ArcView interface and bringing data and/or completed project files into each lesson. Although, after a procedure is described in one lesson it is described in less detail in later lessons. The student must refer to a previous step or lesson for repeated detailed instructions.

In order to minimize distraction for students and teachers, the menu, button, and tool capabilities that are not being utilized during the lessons have been turned off. To make these features visible again, the teacher would only need to open the customization window for each lesson and turn them on. Please see the ArcView help docs for complete intructions on how to do this.

It is not necessary for the teacher conducting the lessons to be an expert in the ArcView software, although some basic knowlege of the functionality would be beneficial in order to help students that may run into problems.

The Mathematics! Using ArcView GIS K-12 Project is designed to be presented to students in Grades 6 and 7 who are currently learning the mathematical concepts presented in the textbook referenced below. The current textbook which is being used at Blevins Junior High School and Lincoln Junior High School in Fort Collins, Colorado was referred to in creating the lessons for this project. Students may refer to this textbook when needed.
Also included in this project is a H E L P page that provides links to web sites geared towards helping K-12 students with math homework.

The current textbook being used by the Poudre School District at the time of the Mathematics project creation is:
Mathematics: Applications and connections course 3. (1995). New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.

Hardware requirements

PC: minimum of 486 PC with 24 MB RAM, running Microsoft Windows 95, 3.1, or NT 4.0 operating systems.
Workstation: IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlet-Packard, DELL, DEC or SGI with 32 MB RAM, running UNIX operating system.
Macintosh: PowerPC, running System 7.1 or higher, with 24 MB of RAM.

Software requirements

ArcView GIS Version 3.0a or higher.
A Web browser (to view the lesson steps).
Data Sources (Metadata)

Getting started

This K-12 project contains one ArcView lesson, three math lessons with answer pages and worksheets, goals of each lesson, a metadata page for the teacher, a data download page for the teacher, and a help page for the students.

Lessons and data

The data required to complete the lessons can be downloaded at the beginning of each lesson by the teacher or the student. To complete the lessons, the student will open a web browser and ArcView at the same time. The web browser and ArcView windows will need to be resized so that the lesson steps fit alongside the ArcView window on the computer screen. Alternatively, the teacher or the student may print the lessons so the student may work from the paper copy. The worksheets are designed to be printed for the students to work out the math problems and turn in to the teacher.

Go to the Table of Contents to Begin