Getting middle school students excited about math can be a challenge.  With that in mind, our Course II math students participated in an experience that enabled them to gain a better understanding of how the math they are learning in the classroom is used in the real world through a competitive Math Madness CarNiVal! 

During this experience, students worked in teams to earn as many CarNiVal points as possible to become the top-earning team in the event!  The primary points were awarded through the completion of 5 mini games such as Battle-Ships, Restaurant Madness, Tic Tic Dance Challenge, Lego Mania and the Great Es-Ca-Pae!   Each of these mini games were designed to incorporate specific math skills in challenges that  engage and enrich student understanding of the SOL’s through focusing on real-world math encounters.  

By the end of the experience, students used their math skills to create an original dance, sink a graphed battleship, build scale models, work at and order from a restaurant menu, and solve multiple real word math problems to gain access to breakout boxes. In addition to the mini games, teams had two opportunities to increase or decrease their total points at the end of the CarNiVal through random chance encounters.  These encounters gave them a mathematical multiplier that increased or decreased their total points, to potentially become the top earning team in the event!