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Middle School Math Department: G7 “Modeling With Inequalities: Carbon Footprint” Math Project

December 7, 2020

About a month ago, the seventh-grade math teachers at SHSID launched an innovative mathematical project that modeled carbon emissions with inequalities. This was a comprehensive project with practical problems and the design of a public service announcement. The project consolidated students’ comprehension of inequality equations and their real-world applications. Teachers intentionally ordered the questions from simple calculations to more open-ended problems, ultimately dividing the project into a total of four parts.

In the first section of the project, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, students calculated the carbon emissions of three people based on their transportation methods. As they created and solved inequalities, students gained an understanding of the serious consequences of massive carbon emissions—including melting icebergs, shifting seasons, and even the emergence of dynamic storms. By providing information about how different kinds of transportation release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the project made students think more critically about their own carbon footprints.

The second section shifted the focus from human transportation to food production and transportation. Titled “Well-Travelled Food”, this section required students to calculate the amount of carbon emitted to both produce and transport food from one place to the next. After this section, students were able to reflect on how much carbon dioxide is required to grow a single food item and then transport it to grocery stores around the world. Students ultimately learned that it is much better to eat locally grown food and avoid beef and dairy, since these food types produce the most carbon emissions.

For the third part called “A Day in Your Life”, students filled out a chart that recorded their daily carbon emissions, specifically from their meals and commute to SHSID. The activity therefore enabled students to reflect on their own carbon footprints and consider how they can reduce emissions in the future by making lifestyle changes.

Last but not least, the public service announcements linked everything they had learned in the previous sections. Their announcements could be in either video or poster form, but the purpose was the same: to make a convincing and persuasive call to action. Not only did they have to understand and apply mathematics, but they also had to be convincing enough that everyday citizens would take notice. To conclude the project, there was a rubric and self-reflection for students to appraise their own work, and to consider what they were proud of and what they would improve on next time.

Although one purpose of this project was to test the students’ capabilities to both write and solve inequalities, the underlying goal was to educate students about their carbon footprints so that they could then educate others. The hope is that by completing the project, students have realized the importance of reducing carbon emissions and convincing others to do the same for the sake of environmental preservation.

Overall, the whole project was masterfully and cleverly arranged, and it was very successful for both teachers and students. We are excited to see what our seventh-grade students will create in the future!

(Written by Jeffrey 7（12） Supervised by Hannah Bush

(Written by Jeffrey 7 (12) Supervised by Hannah Bush Pictures by Middle School Math Department)