Beaver seniors end their school year working a senior experience at an internship of their choosing. Senior Alana Press chose to do her senior experience in the math department at Beaver. For her internship she is helping out all of the math teachers but specifically she is working in Ms. Hamilton’s 8th grade and freshman algebra classes.
She is also letting teachers in the math department pick her brain to see what are the most essential areas in Beaver’s math classes and where the curriculum can be improved, based off her perspective from taking math at Beaver since she was in the 6th grade.
She chose to intern in this department because, “I am going into engineering at University of Colorado Bolder. Math has been my favorite subject for a while. I am also passionate about teaching, engineering, and STEM. And I need a refresher on math before going to college.”
“Working with Alana this spring has been fantastic for all of us. The eighth graders love collaborating with her – they are comfortable asking her questions, celebrating their understanding, and learning about life in the Upper School from Alana. As a thought partner for me, Alana has brought her deep understanding of math and strong sense of creativity to all we have worked on.” – Ms. Hamilton
In Ms. Hamiltons 8th grade algebra class, Alana created a geometry project for the students to help bring the Pythagorean Theorem to life. The project has three options for the students in the class to choose from:
- Find explore the school and find five possible right triangles. Use the Pythagorean theorem to prove that they are right triangles and then make a presentation about your findings.
2. Recreate a Pythagorean Triple, three positive intervals a, b, and c, that are a2 + b2 = c2. Create it first by hand with evidence on how you arrived at the design. Then recreate the design in Desmos, an advanced graphing calculator, or P5js, a coding software.
3. Complete a collection of multi-step Pythagorean Theorem scenarios each class. Finish the project by creating your own Pythagorean Theorem problem for others to solve.
