Plain pieces of wood were transformed into well-constructed birdhouses when Paul Wilgenkamp’s sixth-graders at Minnesauke Elementary School in the Three Village Central School District put math into action this spring. Given an oversized piece of uncut wood, the students were required to complete measurements and apply their knowledge of proportions to determine how to create a birdhouse based on plans of a different scale.

“Proportions is often one of the harder mathematical concepts for the students to grasp, and I felt this project employed a simple enough concept that really reinforced the challenging subject matter,” stated Mr. Wilgenkamp. “In order to get to the final step – the assembling of the house – the students had to use a series of higher-order thinking skills and put the lessons learned in the classroom into action.”

Working independently, and with support from Mr. Wilgenkamp and school math lab teacher Colleen Maier, the students used rulers, protractors and compasses to figure calculations, which they transferred directly onto the wood. Based on their calculations, the students determined the length and width of the sides of the house, the circumference for the front entry hole, and the size of the base and roof slabs. Once the “board of math” was complete, Mr. Wilgenkamp and parent volunteers Bill Beasley, Erik Dimech and Erik Pearson cut the boards into the birdhouse sections. The students assembled their birdhouses in class and took them home in hopes that a local feathered friend would make it their new home.

“This was a great project that made math really fun,” remarked sixth-grader Jenna Dimech. “It really helped me improve my understanding of the things we were talking about in class and made me see how they apply to a real-world problem.”