Painting race track fence part of a math problem
One of the crews made up of students from CCHS math classes, these fence painters were tackling part of the estimated 2,770 feet of board fence surrounding the race track at the county fairgrounds. Shown wielding brushes and rollers were, from front to back: Tara Hankins, Will Wortman, Amanda Cholin, Jason Dennis, Nichole Mills and Billy Allen.Remember the Huckleberry Finn story about painting a fence? Two of Terry Sime's Crook County High school math classes are taking a slightly different approach to the topic of fence painting.
The problem to solve had to do with computing how much paint would it take to paint the fence at the Crook County Fairgrounds race track. Working toward the answer called for the students to estimate the number of boards in the fence and to do that meant taking lots of measurements. Once the square footage was figured, they had to determine the amount of paint and how many of what kinds of brushes would be needed.
As with most tough math questions, finding the answers were only part of the problem - proving the solutions was at least half of the quiz. And what better way to corroborate the results of all that computation than to simply begin painting.
This week approximately 40 math students took up the task. As one student said, it is all part of the Service Learning Program, "and anyway, the fence needed it."
What fun it is to learn.