Playground Project

In Geometry, we just finished up our Area and Perimeter unit. My students did a project that was inspired by an Illuminations project by NCTM.

My students had to design their own playground. They were given a certain amount of fencing to enclose the park and the dimensions of the playground equipment needed. Then, they had to place their playground equipment in the park. They also had to calculate the amount of sand and grass needed in the park. The students also had to make a scale drawing of their playground. I gave them the option of drawing it on a poster or creating a 3D diorama.

Need an area and perimeter project? This is a fun project based learning activity for middle school or high school geometry!

You can see the rubric I used here. It isn't perfect, but it's getting better the longer I do this project. Last year, I made the students type up their calculations and write their answers in paragraph form. It was a pain for me to grade, and I don't think the students benefitted from typing their answers. This year, I gave the students a table to fill in with their answers.

Honestly, I feel like this project should have been a huge grade booster for my students. This project was created by NCTM for middle school, but I did beef it up a little bit for high school. However, about half of my students didn't follow directions at all and ended up missing free points. I can't say that I'm surprised.

Here are some of the final projects from my kids last year and this year. Some of them are so creative!