Kate Fanelli
Beacon Day Treatment Center, Inkster

Troubled teens enlist in junkyard wars

Project Plan

1. Goals
I have increased mathematical understanding by half a letter grade, work completion by 7%, and increased attitudes toward math and personal competency through a project that requires students to apply specific, teacher-taught mathematical principles innovatively and creatively while building machines out of “junk.”

My goal is to teach mathematics to severely emotionally impaired high school students. To be successful, I address their effective needs while overcoming barriers to poor school performance and compensating for their significant gaps and deficits

2. Your Unique Approach
In response to student interest, I created a curriculum based on the Junkyard Wars television series. Our junkyard contains cardboard, plastic, metal, fabric, foam and wood scraps. Initially, students practice working cooperatively, learn related mathematical concepts, practice the concepts in laboratory experiments, and observe experts building similar machines.

Then, student teams plan, build, test and modify their machines. Students might apply angles and measurements to ramps, mechanical advantage and ratios to catapults, or surface area and volume to boats.

Finally, students compete for creative, technical and behavioral awards, and produce short documentary movies demonstrating their mathematical reasoning and process. Student achievement occurs through mastery of the mathematical concepts, use of technology, engineering of the machine, interaction with peers, and participation.

3. Relevance
Math becomes relevant when presented in the context of a task. Students build common machines such as cars, ramps and boats, or machines that appeal to a different sensibility such as catapults and bulldozers.

The parameters of the project simulate the real world. Students use tools and mechanical fasteners, work in teams, work from a plan and work within a budget. Materials are purchased from a classroom store.

The final assessment is a student-produced movie. Use of a popular medium provides additional interest, and an opportunity to use technology to demonstrate new learning.

4. Measurement
(2002/2003 and 2004/2005 school years, 50 students each)
Date shows that Junkyard Wars projects in higher grades (75% for the project versus 73% for the marking period), and higher work completion (90% versus 83%).

Survey responses demonstrate the impact on students’ attitudes. On a scale where 5 represented strongly agree and 1 represented strongly disagree, average responses were positive.
I am more likely to participate
in class during a Junkyard War4.3

Junkyard Wars makes me
a better logical thinker3.8

I learned something new
doing Junkyard Wars3.7

I am more likely to attend
school if we are doing a
Junkyard War3.6

5. Challenges
First, compensating for gaps between grade level and functioning level means making high school level math accessible. The average grade level of my students is 10.2, but the average math achievement test grade level equivalent is 5.9. 82% of my students function at least two levels below their grade. Junkyard Wars compensates for this discrepancy by teaching high school objectives that do not require math skills that may have been missed or repeatedly failed, but allows students to think mathematically and solve complex problems without being hindered by a low achievement level.

Second, Beacon is a day treatment center serving students from 23 school districts in Wayne County. All students are certified emotionally impaired. 60% receive free or reduced lunch. 90% carry a psychiatric diagnosis, and 68% take medication(s). 25% of our students have a history of court-involved placements or interventions. For our students, learning is not a priority, and they arrive believing they are bad at math and bad at school. Despite their emotional impairments, students are able to use supplies appropriately, work within posted guidelines, and come to mutual decisions about their machines.

Third, my annual classroom budget is $550, and that includes supplies needed for regular math instruction and projects in addition to the Junkyard Wars project. This project has been supported by grants from Samsung Corporation, RadioShack Corporation, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and Michigan Association of School Boards. It also receives donations of junk from coworkers and family members. I contribute personal funds to fill in the gaps.

Although I have accumulated enough supplies to make this project work, students are limited in supplies and often wait for equipment to become available. Having enough tools and cameras for each team, better storage capability, larger work spaces, and universal supplies such as power tools, power cords, and computers would provide more choice, flexibility, possibility and opportunity for students as they planned and executed their machines and movies.