Trapped by the seasons

As a Scout group, we have traditionally done 4 camps each year: 

• Fall camp is at the beginning of October (2 nights)
• Winter camp is at the beginning of February (2 nights)
• Spring camp is at the beginning of June (2 nights)
• Summer camp is in August at Halliburton Scout Reserve (7 nights).  Less Scouts tend to come to summer camp though because it is a big financial commitment for parents/guardians and is a week long so I hesitate to count it as a camp

I was skimming a report the other day from a University of Waterloo student titled Membership Retention in Scouts (Morland, 2007).  One of the recommendations that caught my eye was to have more activities and camps.  Morland proposes an outdoor activity each month including 6 camps throughout the year.

Why have we always stuck to 4 camps?  Maybe it's just because there happen to be 4 seasons so it's convenient to refer to them by the season they occur in.  This is reinforced by the fact that there are the 'Year-Round Camper' Badges divided by the seasons (though Fall/Spring is one badge).

Essentially what I'm getting at is that it's fairly arbitrary that we have 4 camps.  Why don't we do another Winter camp in December before the Winter break? Or in January shortly after we get back from the break.  Or maybe one in April to fill the gap between Winter and Spring camp.  Or how about a shorter camp earlier in the summer?  

One of the arguments against an additional camp is that it will require more planning time for leaders and another weekend lost.  I would argue that the Scouts should be doing the bulk of the planning and preparing anyways and the independence and confidence they gain from the process is much more valuable than the skill of learning to tie 4 different types of knots.  In terms of the time commitment for leaders, not every leader needs to come to every camp.  Too many leaders at camps has lead to a lack of Scout participation around camp which leads to a lack of them acquiring important camping and survival skills.  Too many leaders and it undermines the independence we are trying to foster among the Scouts.  An additional thing to consider is that camps could be 1 night instead of 2.

As head leader, I'm making it a Troop Goal for the program to follow Morland's suggestion of having at least 1 outing per month.  Also, we will have a 5th camp.  I think being outside as often as possible and fostering independence are 2 key ingredients in keeping Scouts year to year.  

Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown

As a teacher, it pays to be opportunistic.  At least in terms of student engagement.  Take Toronto transit planning for example (or more like a ridiculously embarrassing lack of transit planning in the GTA).  Some students are bound to know about the most recent craziness surrounding a subway line in Scarborough.  Bringing it up may get other students interested in current events.  Nothin' like a good ol' subway debate to get a class riled up and excited for some learnin'.

Anyways this week I came across this map:

When a construction company is tendering a job, an estimator (or intern) may need to do take-offs: a fancy way of saying figuring out how much stuff they need to buy so they can put a cost to a job.  Here's a good math question:

Using the map above, how much material will they need to remove to construct the tunnels in the underground section of the LRT?

You may say there's not enough information there, which is probably true unless you make some big assumptions.  You can find the length of the tunnel using Google Earth.  If you explore the Eglinton Crosstown website you can find this rendering of the tunnel boring machine launch site:

From the picture, it's apparent that there are 2 adjacent tunnels.  Based on the size of a person (maybe 1.6 or 1.7 metres), you can estimate the diameter of the tunnels.  Using the length of the tunnel and the diameter, you can calculate a volume (after some unit conversions most likely).

Real-World Problem Solving

There are many other ways to find out the size and lengths of the tunnels from reports and construction drawings.  That's the awesome thing about these kinds of questions.  Plenty of ways to an answer.  Also, the answers may vary depending on what assumptions are made!  You can have a good class debate to try to figure out who is closest and why.  

You could also put some numbers to it.  How much would it cost to remove the rock/dirt?  Where should it go?  How big would a pile of it be?  How do I make sure I cover my assumptions?  These are all questions an Estimator has to deal with when pricing a job.  And it all comes from some simple geometry!  Great for any math class.  A lot of Construction and Engineering problems can be boiled down to simple math.  

This is also a perfect opportunity for some Problem-Based Learning.  The Eglinton LRT could be a theme for a unit.  The problem would be to estimate the cost of the whole rail line.  Several math concepts could be brought in to help solve the problem: areas and volumes, slopes of lines, finance, scale, understanding and creating graphs.  It's a way to give a bunch of disparate and lonely math concepts some common context and interest.  There is also the human factor to consider: the impact on the communities and the environment.  Definitely some interdisciplinary potential there.

I do foresee a problem however.  If I was ever to do this activity with a class I'd probably get so excited I'd end up talking about tunnel boring machines for an hour and put everyone to sleep.  The woes of being a Civil Engineer... not everyone cares about dirt as much as you do.  Vince understands.