The National Math Trail is now in its third year, thanks to renewed support from the US Department of Education's Star Schools program, through the Satellite Education Resources Consortium (SERC), and NEC Foundation.

The National Math Trail is an opportunity for K-12 teachers and students to discover and share the math that exists in their own environments. Students explore their communities and create one or more math problems that relate to what they find. Teachers submit the problems to the National Math Trail site, along with photos, drawings, sound recordings, videos--whatever can be adapted to the Internet. All submissions will be posted to the site as they are submitted. They are also be indexed according to grade level and math topic and will remain on the site for access by educators, students and parents.

This is a wonderful opportunity to bring the excitement of real-world math into the classroom. It can be adapted to any mathematics topic of the K-12 curriculum. The Technology Tutorial presents simple ways to utilize technology in preparing entries--including a template for the creation of web page submissions. There is also an online self-teaching guide on digital communication.

What is a Math Trail?

The concept of a Math Trail was first developed by Australian educator Dudley Blane as a way to have students become active learners by finding the math that exists in their communities.

Many teachers have used and expanded on the Math Trail concept. One of them is Presidential Award winner Kay Toliver from East Harlem, New York. Click here to read about her Math Trail ideas. Click here to see the "Math Trail" video from the award-winning series, Teacher Talk.