The Joy of Unnecessary Math

Kate McDaniel
5 days ago
2 min read

Most students probably have an understanding that math and science are friends. Yet often when they encounter actually having to do math during a science class students are surprised!

“Ugh… I have to do….. MATH?!”

Yes!

We have long sung the praises of unnecessary measurements: measuring materials with rulers, graduated cylinders or digital scales when the amount doesn’t actually matter. It's the opportunity to expose students to new tools and reinforce concepts like basic number sense, decimal places, and units that are important. These are skills that only improve with practice and repeat exposure.

Similarly, we encourage teachers to take a science concept and reverse engineer a math lesson that fits with it. Elementary school teachers have a slightly easier time with this since they teach both math and science to their students. We also encourage math and science teachers in middle and high school to work together to create these lessons and bridge the gap between these two separate classes.

I want to note a slight difference between necessary and UNnesscary math in science class. Both are valuable! They serve different purposes. Necessary math is calculating averages when students collect data and representing their data in any kind of graph after an experiment. These skills are an important part of analyzing and describing/presenting data. The science is first and the math is supportive to the science.

Unnecessary math is the opposite. This is a math lesson first but through the lens of a science topic.

Here we highlight a few examples we have made throughout the years, including FREE worksheet PDFs!

Deforestation and Oxygen Levels

This activity covers percentages (NY-5.NBT), fractions (NY-5.NF) and graphing (NY-5.G). It is without a doubt a math lesson. However, the frame in which the math is wrapped is also a science lesson on deforestation. The activity walks them through different scenarios and gives them a shape of the deforestation they apply to their “forest” grid. From there they can calculate the fraction and percentage of their forest that was lost. We even give them information on how much oxygen trees produce each year (see that sneaky photosynthesis connection?!) and they can calculate how much oxygen production is lost in each scenario.

Solar System Math and Graphing

Space is always an exciting topic for students and an easy opportunity to reinforce various math concepts. In our middle school worksheet, we cover graphing, scientific notation, conversions, and recognizing patterns. Graphing can be a tough one to tackle because the scale of space is SO HUGE. However, bar graphs of planetary density and gravity are easily achievable.

Our upper elementary worksheet focuses heavily on word problems and applying the correct function. This covers multiplication, division, fractions (NY-5.NF2), conversions (NY-5.MD2), and operations in base ten (NY-5.NBT).