Create mosaic or calculate area (EN-CUR-672)

Students can look at photographs of mosaics on https://www.europeana.eu/en . They will recognize geometric shapes, the teacher leads them to notice squares and rectangles.

They can draw a square and a rectangle in the digital mosaic application. First, they count how many smaller squares they need to fill in the shapes, and then they can figure out how to calculate that number. The teacher can also show a video lesson explaining the calculation of the area of the square and rectangle. The teacher checks the students’ knowledge with worksheets.

In the creative part of the lesson, students are divided into smaller groups.  At Europeana they can choose a mosaic with mostly geometric shapes that they will partially reconstruct. They make a similar mosaic using paper squares with an area of square centimeter. Then they organize a class exhibition and fill out assessment rubrics.

At the end of the lesson, students can take a photo of each other and then use a digital app that will turn their photo into a mosaic.

This learning scenario has been developed during the “Digital Education with Cultural Heritage Rerun” online course. The course aimed to improve teachers’ understanding of cultural heritage in order to efficiently integrate it into their lessons and practices. The courses can be accessed here.

Author: Marina Kopjar

Age of students: 10-11

Subject and topic: Mathematics/ Area of squares and rectangles, Making mosaic

Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:

CC BY 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Università di Bologna.