The goal is to create situations where the math can be helpful in solving a common problem, and student conversations and discussions help to bring about new mathematical understandings. The computer simulation tools allow students to immediately design solutions to their problem without getting bogged down in unnecessary technical details, computation, or symbolic forms. The environments give students access to multiple representations of their work and information about the different designs they create. The technology also helps students organize data in certain ways, structure their reportability, and use the data in explanations. In The Antarctica Project unit students take on the role of architectural designers who are creating a research station for a scientific expedition to Antarctica.
Students have opportunities to develop and apply measurement and scale concepts.
They work with independent and dependent variables and controlling variables situations through math opportunities which utilize hands-on experiences with the software. First, because the group shares a design, their design decisions need to be negotiated, made explicit and justified. These aspects of design are also supported by the curriculum and the classroom activities for this unit. Second, students can make conjectures about how changing a variable, such as insulation, might affect the cost to heat a structure. They can then test these conjectures by changing the value of insulation in their design and seeing how other quantities are affected by this change.