Ermineskin Junior High School, Maskwacis, AB

Math Catchers Shawn Desaulniers and Veselin Jungic spent an hour talking about mathematics and exploring the properties of Möbius strips with a group of Grade 7 students from Ermineskin Junior High School. We would like to thank Mrs. Jennifer Langford for her hospitality and Mr. Ahmad Jawad for arranging our visit.

"On behalf of myself and my grade 7 class, I would like to thank you again for your visit today.  My grade 7 classes often say how much they miss field trips and presenters that they often would have in elementary school. Math class, in general, does not usually have many opportunities to go on field trips or have people visit.

Having visitors such as yourselves come to our classroom today was very exciting for the kids. I just love to see my kids engaged in rich mathematical language.

In my classroom, I always encourage the kids to speak and share what they are thinking so that we can learn from each other and share different ways of solving problems. It took them a few minutes to warm up, but as they started to solve the problems you presented in your powerpoint, I could just see their excitement.  Made me a proud teacher.... :)

The presentation was engaging. It had a good balance of math puzzles to solve and hands on learning to follow.

Many of the kids have not seen Möbius strips before.  It was fun to see their faces as they traced the line all the way around, or when they cut them and they realized that they remained as one whole piece!

They were still talking about it this afternoon. My other grade 7 classes quickly found out what we did in the presentation and quickly asked why they could not have a presentation too :)

I would have loved to have the classes longer today so you could have finished your last step, or possibly presented to my other classes.

You are welcome to come back to my grade 7 classes anytime."