setting up a story problem (middle school math)
kirby urner
Take a map of a city and place different types of object:
* warehouse
* supply house
* logistics house
* kitchen
* school
* serving place
* bike with trailer
* bike with no trailer
Diagramming a class hierarchy in terms of ancestor
and child classes makes some sense. Supply and
Logistics are both subclasses of House whereas
"with trailer" could be an attribute of a bike object.
class House:
def __init__(self): # birth of an instance
pass
class Logistics (House):
"""
serves as a parking and service space for bikes,
cooking kits, dry goods. No special refrigeration.
"""
class Supply (House):
"""
pick up and drop off from warehouse sources,
restaurants, bakeries, private donations, food co-ops
with emphasis on "just in time" versus stockpiling,
specializing in perishables
"""
A given script is cast in terms of events and players
(actors, agents), in traditional object oriented style
with many concepts transferable. The computer
game 'Oregon Trail' has been influential.
A city map (e.g. using Google Maps and/or Google
Earth) is a fine beginning. I used this approach for
Martian Math at Reed College, and for GIS / Python
at Winterhaven, for a mix of high school and middle
schoolers. Take a "you are here" approach and then
imagine yourself in a first person scenario, serving
as one of the cast in the above language game
(namespace). Maps = geography = a basis for
topology = geometry. Geometry + Geography is
my first division of the whole into parts.
Here I'm just sharing some of the props (artifacts).
There's a lot more happening with data bases, recipes,
learning about cookware (yes, that means knives --
mathematicians use them).
Then there are storyboards, like game levels, where
you simulate needing to organize a community, say
in Detroit. There's an Asian connection on some of
the levels in that bio diesel trucks do a lot of the heavy
lifting, and actually get their fuel from some of the
above described kitchens (some of the warehouses
donate tofu). But then bio diesel doesn't always
work so well in freezing cold temperatures. More
data for the model. More reports to generate using
Perl (though not exclusively).
Kirby