Wild Rice Project - Math

In two high schools we tried an activity where we looked at a local lake, Whitefish Lake, that I have been fishing in and driving by over the last 20 years.  Many people know of the lake as it is a good place for fishing and for fishing derbies.  I just found out in November that a local First Nations Community, Seine River First Nations, actually harvests wild rice from the area.  I thought this might be a good opportunity for students to learn how to problem solve with surface area and volume.  I was inspired by hearing a Indigenous educator from the U.S. discussing how the first week at an Ojibwa school in Minnesota gets students to learn math and science by harvesting wild rice with elders.

I showed each class Whitefish Lake on Google Earth, closing in on the area that we figured where the wild rice was going.  We talked about the lake, fishing, and wild rice.  Discussed recipies, how to cook wild rice properly (boil it twice, both times for at least 30 minutes before putting into soups or stews).  Next we looked at how wild rice is harvested in that lake (and in Northern Ontario).  We watched a video from YouTube showing the traditional techniques.  We discussed how this approach is in line with ecological approaches, using closed loop systems of harvesting and recycling nutrients.

I went back to the map and asked the question; How long would it take to harvest all this wild rice?
Students now got into groups and brainstormed what they need to know to try and answer this question.

We collected all the responces and put the ideas into a chart

identifying what was a practical question and what required research.  This allowed us to plot our course of action for the next week.

We had to have a discussion about what they were actually solving for; in the case of their canoes, the amount of rice means they'll have to solve for the volume of the canoe; size of the lake where the wild rice grows means they'll have to solve for the area of the lake.  In each case they're irregular shaped objects that requires creative thinking to solve for their magnitudes.

Students started to plan how they would answer this question.  All students got the opportunity to build their own canoes.  Here's a couple examples of the canoes they made;

Next some started to try and determine the volume of their canoe to figure out how much rice could fit into it.  They were allowed to use any techniques they wanted: measuring liquids or rice volumes (using graduated cylinders we "stole" from the science rooms) that fit into the canoes, comparing the structure of the canoe to shapes of other regular 3-dimensional objects so they could use measurements and formulas, and some combined both methods (putting the liquid or rice into a regular shape like a cubic or cyclinder and then using the measurments and formulas.

Some students tried finding the area of the lake where the wild rice grows (we theorized where this was as we haven't actually been out to the lake) using Google Earth and Paint.  Students copied the picture of the lake and then pasted it into Paint to see what regular shaped objects they could use to find the area.  They then used the measuring tool in Google Earth to determine the necessary dimensions to calculate the area using the corresponding formula.

The teacher I was working with, Sherry Mann from Sir Winston Churchill C&VI, got another student to do some research on how many wild rice plants grow in a square metre, and how much wild rice on average is produced by one plant.  She put a wicked awesome consolidation page together to help guide the students to putting the information together to finally answer the question.  Below is the page along with the students' attempts at answering the questions.  You'll see quite quickly all the different math strategies the students had to employ to complete the activity.

Link to the Word Doc: Wild Rice Consolidation Handout

I need to give a shout out to Dan Meyer who's philosophy of gettings students to brainstorm what information they need to answer the problem before looking at how to answer the problem.  Check out his blog and his TedTalk video where he explains his philosophy in practical terms.

Here are some examples of the students work;