On our last two days before this year's Easter break, students went out to two nearby scenic spots in Hangzhou, the Xixi Wetlands Park and the Bagua Tian, to practise their maths with a number of practical challenges. We were lucky that Spring was just blooming... although the weather did turn a bit grey and drizzly on the second day, down at Bagua Tian (it was difficult to work out the height of the adjacent mountain using trigonometry when its upper half was completely obscured by low cloud!).
There was added motivation for these tasks this year, because our Maths teachers had threatened to quit teaching and find new jobs if students couldn't reassure them that mathematics is useful in the real world!
A slideshow by Mr Murphy
The music is Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Oh dear - it was rather naughty of me to use the Dave Brubeck piece! It is of course still under copyright, and thus the slideshow is blocked by Youtube in some countries.
Here is a revised version with a classical Chinese erhu piece, 蝉院鐘声, accompanying it (which I am pretty sure is not copyright-protected - or not aggressively so).
