Teacher's Guide

Shaping A City

 Scenario

A city planner develops, researches and prepares projects plans for cities.  You have been hired as a city planner to renovate some areas in Baltimore City. As part of your research, your class will be visiting Columbia located in Howard County, Maryland to see how a model city is designed. You will design a model for a renovated city block.

Essential Question:  How does building a model help you understand the real world?

Task and Product

 Working in a group, you will use Connectsİ to create a city block that demonstrates your understanding of geometry and research about construction of cities. Each group will develop an oral presentation to explain how your knowledge of geometry is reflected.

Assessments

The following scoring tools will be used to assess both the process of gathering information and your finished product.

Rubric for Math Problem Solving

Rubric for Building a Structure

Question

Essential Question:  How does building a model help you understand how math is used in the real world?

Subsidiary questions:

What are geometric shapes?

How are 3 dimensional shapes used to build a city?

Why do you think one shape is used more than other shapes?

How is a city plan developed?

Why is a city plan necessary?

Gather and Sort

 Gather information from a variety of sources. Sort your research findings using a graphic organizer. 

Be sure to avoid plagiarism and keep track of your resources for a bibliography.

Organize

Analyze your completed city plan.

Synthesize your findings by using numbers and words to answer the following BCR:

  • Why do you think city planners used one geometric figure more than others to build a city block?

Evaluate the effectiveness of your research for the task.

Have you gathered sufficient information to building your model?

Is your research reflected in your model?

Prepare your oral presentation, explaining how your knowledge of geometry helped in creating your model.

Conclusion

 

Reflection and/or Extension Activities:

In what way did building your model help you understand how city planners use geometry in the real world?