Ms. Erica McArthur’s Math 10 Honours went on a field trip to Science World to explore the ‘Science behind Pixar’ exhibit to discover how mathematics are implemented in real world situations, such as animation. According to the Science World website on the exhibit, the show “highlights the integration of science, technology, engineering, art and math in storytelling.”
The students in McArthur’s class found out what real life situations and careers require the topics they’ve been learning in class, such as graphing. The world of animation uses graphing to help determine relative size in animation. “The idea of the trip was to help my students understand why we are doing graphing and other concepts in my class; the exhibit showed them applications of math in the real world,” said McArthur.
McArthur also aimed to teach the kids that almost nothing is done on the first try, and whether in science, math, or any other subject, there is a process of trial and error before getting anything right. At Pixar, scenes are tested several times before the finished product is seen in the theatre.
The Math Honours field trip was an opportunity unlike any other to some students who have moved to Canada as immigrants. “This trip was amazing for me because I would have never been able to anything like this in my home country,” said grade 10 math honours student Moe Movahedan, who moved to Canada from Iran with his family in 2012.
Getting there wasn’t like any normal field trip either. “I tried to make the entire field trip an experience. The class met at the sky train station and we took it there together, then after we finished our visit we all took the bus back,” said McArthur
All the students seem to have enjoyed the trip and were able to take something valuable away from it. “If the kids took away anything, I wanted everyone to have fun and get a nice break from our regular class routine,” said McArthur.
