Modules

Math in a Cultural Context (MCC) is a supplemental elementary school math series. The math modules that compose MCC are the result of a rather extraordinary collaboration of educators, Yup’ik elders and teachers, mathematicians and math educators, and Alaskan school districts. This collaboration spans nearly two decades of work: forming meaningful relationships between the parties of this work to producing not only culturally relevant materials that connect local knowledge to school knowledge, include integrated materials (literacy, geography, and science), and according to rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs used in numerous studies found MCC to be effective. These modules are available for download under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Jump To: Egg Island | Patterns and Parkas | Picking Berries | Designing Patterns | Star Navigation | Kayak Design | Building a Fish Rack | Building a Smokehouse | Salmon Fishing | Drying Salmon


 Going to Egg Island: Adventures in Grouping and Place Values (Grades 1–2) 

Going to Egg Island module cover.

Author: Jerry Lipka

This module is designed for students in grades one and two. In a series of problems built around the story of a second-grade girl gathering sea bird eggs in the spring, students learn and apply the mathematical concepts and skills of counting and grouping two-digit numbers, estimating, measuring, sorting and place values. Students play traditional Yup'ik games while simultaneously investigating number patterns, which lead to a strong sense of grouping and place values. 

 

 

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Patterns and Parkas: Investigating Geometric Principles, Shapes, Patterns and Measurement (Grade 2) 

Patterns and Parkas module cover.Authors: Sandi Pendergrast, Jerry Lipka, Daniel Lynn Watt, Kay Gilliland, Nancy Sharp

Grade two students learn about the properties of shapes including squares, rectangles, triangles, and parallelograms. They learn a variety of ways to make those shapes and how Yup’ik elders use these shapes to create patterns. As the students make shapes, they learn about geometrical relationships, symmetry, congruence, proofs and measuring. Students connect learning in the community to learning in school.

 

 

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Picking Berries: Connections Between Data Collection, Graphing, and Measuring (Grades 2–3)

Picking Berries module cover

Authors: Jerry Lipka, Janice Parmelee, Rebecca Adams

In this module for grades two and three, students engage in a series of hands-on activities that help them explore data, graphic representation and linear measuring. Students gather data related to the berry harvest to build and analyze tables and graphs, and they learn to read thermometers and measure the length of their shadows.  

 

 

 

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Designing Patterns: Exploring Shapes and Area (Grades 3–5)

Designing Patterns module cover
Authors: Daniel L. Watt, Jerry Lipka, Joan Parker Webster, Evelyn Yanez, Dora Andrew-Ihrke, Aishath Shehenaz Adam

In this module designed for grades three to five, students design patterns to be used in a headdress or similar linear strip. They explore properties of shapes, lines of symmetry, and part-to-part and part-to-whole relationships. The module provides numerous opportunities for the teacher to extend and adapt this curriculum, from further explorations of fractions to Yup’ik cultural knowledge.

 

 

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Star Navigation: Explorations into Angles and Measurement (Grades 5–7)

Star Navigation module coverAuthors: Barbara L Adams, Melissa Kagle, Frederick George

Students in grades five to seven learn ways of observing, measuring and navigating during the day and at night, including specific details of the location and orientation of the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia. They refine their understanding of angle measurements and how they differ from linear measures throughout the activities. The mathematical goal of this module is to give students a strong conceptual sense of angles.

 

 

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Kayak Design: Scientific Method and Statistical Analysis (Grades 5–7)

Kayak Design module coverAuthors: Jerry Lipka, Carrie Jones, Nicolle Gilsdorf, Karen Remick and Anthony Rickard

Through creating simple clay kayak models, students in grades six and seven are able to investigate the relationship between the kayak’s shape and its function. By exploring these relationships, students are guided into a series of purposeful mathematical investigations using the scientific method. They collect, organize and analyze data by developing tables, converting tables into graphs, interpreting graphs and using basic statistical techniques to determine whether there is a relationship between form and function.

 

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Building a Fish Rack: Investigations into Proofs, Properties, Perimeter and Area (Grade 6)

Building a Fish Rack module coverAuthors: Barbara Adams, Jerry Lipka

In this module for grade six, formal mathematics are developed through hands-on activities related to building a fish rack for the salmon harvest. Building a Fish Rack provides opportunities to pursue open-ended problems and extended problem-solving projects. Students begin with the overall problem of how to build a fish rack, and from there they explore associated problems such as determining the area for a variety of fish-rack shapes and determining the type of three-dimensional shape that is most structurally stable.

 

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Building a Smokehouse: The Geometry of Prisms (Grades 6–7)

Building a Smokehouse module cover
Authors: Melissa Kagle, Valerie Barber, Jerry Lipka, Ferdinand Sharp, Anthony Rickard

In this module for grades six and seven, students learn how to build a smokehouse modeled after ones currently used by the Yup'ik people. Through this task, students construct models to generalize properties of rectangles to three-dimensional rectangular prisms. Further investigation into triangles and triangular prisms arise while designing roofs for the structures. The hands-on activities lead students to understand prisms in general. 

 

 

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Salmon Fishing: Investigations into Probability (Grades 6–7)

Salmon Fishing module coverAuthors: Aishath Shehenaz Adam, Jerry Lipka, Barbara L Adams, Anthony Rickard, Kay Gilliland, Joan Parker Webster

Students in grades six and seven use activities based on subsistence and commercial fishing in southwest Alaska to investigate various topics related to probability, such as experimental and theoretical probability, the law of large numbers, sample space and equally and unequally likely events. The module consists of nine activities, with each activity including an introduction, goals, materials used, preparation needed before class, vocabulary and instructions.

 

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Drying Salmon: Journeys into Proportional and Pre-Algebraic Thinking (Grades 6–7)

Drying Salmon module coverAuthors: Barbara L. Adams, Jerry Lipka

This sixth and seventh grade module explores pre-algebraic and proportional thinking using the unique system of body measures that a Yup’ik elder used when hanging her salmon to dry. Students transform their own measurements into mathematical symbols as a way to investigate variables, relationships, proportions and algebraic thinking.

 

 

 

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