April ushers in Earth Day, which presents an excellent context for elementary mathematicians to explore rectangular garden plots. The Teaching Children Mathematics article "Area Conceptions Sprout on Earth Day" describes a lesson in which children measure and compare the areas of different gardens, each made with the same amount of fencing. Students use craft sticks and paper squares to make sense of the context and develop unique solution methods, which are described in the article. The lesson ends with students planning an indoor garden using craft sticks to mark out the space needed for each seed.
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