Let the games begin — games like the “Marble Mass Grab” and the “Fore! Decameter Chip.” Welcome to the Metric Olympics. They took place at Edgewood School Thursday, mixing fun with a new approach to preparing kids for standardized tests.
Seventy 7th and 8th graders from the Edgewood Magnet School gathered on the field behind the New Haven Parks and Recreation offices early Thursday morning. The sun was pushing through residual clouds and the playing field was still damp from the early morning rain. Wearing color-coded T shirts representing eight different countries, the students listened closely as their teachers gave out the last-minute instructions. They’d brought footballs, golf clubs, Frisbees, softballs, stop watches — and a measuring balance. Sure, they were here to have fun. But that wasn’t the whole story.
These kids came to measure.
Welcome to the Edgewood International Metric Olympics. In response to lagging Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) scores in the areas of metric conversion and approximating measurements. Bonnie Pachesa, principal of the school, issued a challenge to the math and science teachers to come up with an activity that was both instructional and fun. “I came up with the [Metric Olympics] idea and ran it by Keith [Kaliszewski, science teacher] and Bonnie [Pacheso], and it just sort of blossomed,” explained Ryan Clough, who teaches math at the school.
The day began with a yell from within the crowd: “Mr. K, is it OK if they start?” First came the fun: students competed with their teams in events such as the 40 meter dash, the Frisbee discus and the softball shot put. At each event station, the students performed the required activity, cheering each other on (and, naturally, debating the adult referees’ questionable calls). Performance was measured by their teammates in metric units, of course, and scores were tallied. There were some stand-out moments: Anthony Negron, representing Argentina, kicked two sparkling goals from 20 meters away (that’s 65.6167979 feet, for the metrically challenged). Shavonda Meyers of the Mexican team covered 40 meters (please do the math yourself this time) in a whiplash-inducing 5.81 seconds.
The second part of the activity was to take place back at school, where the students were to answer word problems based on the data they’d compiled. And if anyone had the mistaken impression that he could get by solely on their athletic ability, well, points were to be deducted for incorrect calculations.
But the theme of the morning was fun. The Barbados team was trying to throw a football into a large plastic barrel. Juwan Cuffy explained that the target was “about 20 yards” away. His team groaned collectively and he quickly corrected himself: “20 meters, I mean.”
Other less Olympically-standard events included the “Marble Mass Grab,” where a designated student reached into a bucket and grabbed as many marbles as he could in one hand. The marbles were then weighed and counted in preparation for calculating the mass of a single marble.
Lavonna Williams and Zuleika Candaloria praised the many uses of the metric system: “You can see how tall somebody is, like a basketball player.” The girls then debated among themselves which unit was appropriate for particular measurements, until Jasiman Reid, her face painted to match her red, white and blue Team USA shirt, volunteered that “volume is (for) liquid,” while “meters are for how long something is —” distance.”
The three then set to work estimating the length of the field. When asked what practical purposes they could see for metric measurement, they paused a few seconds before pointing out that soda bottles come in one- and two-liter sizes.
This touched off another debate about the relative merits of each unit of measure. Finally, they all came to agreement: “The best things are liters.”
The Metric Olympics program is now in its second year, and the school staff is eager to see how it will impact this year’s CMT scores. Also interested is the University of Connecticut’s “Gear Up” program, which starting this year is the official sponsor of the event. Gear Up provided the color-coded shirts with the motto “Every Centimeter Counts” printed on the back, all of the equipment, even a celebratory catered cook-out lunch back at the school.
According to Ada Rivera of the UConn Center for Academic Progress, the organization that operates the “Gear Up” program, the grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, provides for academic enrichment at three schools: East Rock, Edgewood and Truman. The grant has recently been renewed for six more years. The program focuses on math, science, language arts and social development. Rivera says Edgewood’s Olympics fit nicely into “Gear Up’s” plan; “students start looking into the connection between math and science and how [they relate] to the world around them.”
In the Edgewood games, the team representing Ireland got down to business with the “Fore! Decameter Chip,” in which two team members took turns trying to hit a golf ball toward a fixed point, attempting to get their ball the closest to the pin. Distances were to be averaged and converted to other units. Fifty centimeters would be added to the best shot for each incorrect answer.
Annie Linger pointed out that the distance to the pin was 40 meters. Her teacher, Ryan Clough, asked her to convert the number to decameters. Meanwhile, Claire Loxsom was enjoying the combination of math and sports. “With it [the athletic events], it’s not too bad, mixing in the metrics; it’s the whole point.”