By Ziggy Chesley
On September 27th, Mr. Bickford took his Calculus AB class to the skate park, in order to teach his class about tangent lines in a much more unconventional manner. The group of twenty-five sophomores, juniors, and seniors braved the cold, morning air and walked out to the skate park, not sure what to expect.
The lesson started with Mr. Bickford gathering the group around a small ramp. Then, he made each student walk up the small ramp backwards, telling them to “stop moving if your feet start to slip.”
After each student was able to scale the ramp with ease, Mr. Bickford went to a much steeper, curved ramp, asking the students to do the same time. Not one of the students could even make it up a few feet before their feet started to slip out from under them. “It was a lot of fun,” said Susanna Keilig. “It nice to get up and do something active, not the normal sitting and looking at the blackboard stuff.”
The challenge quickly turned into a game, and all the students were having a good time. It wasn't until after the class headed back inside that they realized that they just learned about tangent lines, an abstract idea in calculus that, according to Mr. Bickford “ is really hard for some students to understand.” And, it seemed to have worked! “It helped a ton,” said Lauren Reidy, a senior in the class. “It made something that was a really abstract easier to understand because we had a visual to look at.”
So, with a little effort, Mr. Bickford was able to do the impossible, to not only make math easier to understand, but fun!
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