This article talks about not only the importance of having social justice active in the classroom, but how to connect it to math. Many teachers think of math as a "neutral zone where the 'universal language' of numbers doesn’t include highly charged events of the day". However, this shows that including these topics not only makes students more engaged, but also forms them into educated individuals outside of the classroom. So many math teachers always get the question 'When are we going to use this?' in the classroom, but by teaching through social relevancy students see the importance of math. One teacher allows the topics to be selected by their students so that their own biases or political feelings don't interfere with the education. While some topics in math can't fully be related to the world many can and should be. Even discussing these topics in the classroom allows students to feel more comfortable and creates a welcoming and productive environment.

I imagine adopting some of the ideas presented in this article when planning my lessons. If I have the opportunity to relate any math to my student's lives I want to connect them. Even if it is as simple as asking them to come up with crazy topics that we can explore. For example, the article mentioned calculating how much jello fills up the Grand Canyon. Not every math lesson has to be on hard-hitting topics, but allowing my students to veer the discussion in the direction they want is still so engaging.

I plan on implementing these tips and ideas in my future classroom. I love this graphic above and I think it helps show the little steps in order to achieve environmental literacy in a classroom. It also broke up different ideas for lessons depending on the subject area and the ideas under math were really interesting. I plan on using them, especially the idea of having my students calculate their own carbon footprint in the future. I also really liked the idea of looking at the weather trends over the years and seeing the change. Adding climate talk into my classroom will help my students understand what is going on in the world around them, but also have them continue developing mathematical skills. 

This resource not only provides information regarding social justice in math, but also has resources and lesson plans that can be implemented. It lists out benefits not only for the students, but also for the educators. Including learning more about their students' lives, families, and communities. Also teaching math through social relevancy allows a deeper bond and relationship between students and teachers. It also highlighted that not every political topic or social issue should be developed into a math problem, but there are some really cool ways and opportunities that can be done.

This website has so much information that helps teachers learn about socially relevant math problems and even has a search bar for different lesson plans and resources. All of the lessons are split up by what math they address and are on a wide variety of social justice topics. I imagine going to this resource to look for ideas on how to bring up different topics. I liked the idea of doing a college-ready lesson and this resource has some ideas on how to implement one. If I end up in a high school I think having a lesson on budgeting or other important aspects of college could be beneficial for a lot of students.

This article has an example lesson plan for racial profiling. It was about analyzing data and statistics and concluding based on the given information. It could be used for any grade level 6-9 with some modifications, but it offers statistics and questions that can create a positive and meaningful discussion in the classroom. It helps the teacher through the best way to implement the lesson and uses actual mathematical concepts. Some information online that is labeled as a math lesson doesn't focus much on the computational aspect, but this lesson has students answering questions that would be any probability/statics lesson. That is so important because adding social relevance into lessons is only beneficial if the students are still getting the same conceptual skills they would be getting normally. This lesson incorporates both together nicely.

If I were to be in a classroom that has a statistical or proportional reasoning aspect in the curriculum I can see myself using this lesson plan. It offers so many great ideas to connect math with a social issue and I believe that students would be very interested in seeing exactly what math can accomplish in the real world. I think it would also be a cool idea to try to connect with another subject teacher like English or history to try and bring in more information about racial profiling that those teachers may be better equipped for. For example, connecting with a history teacher and having them do the history behind profiling while students do this lesson is such a cool and collaborative idea.