Maths Adds up

Abstract

In this chapter, talking from our professional experience in Secondary Mathematics Education in Catalonia, we will first describe the essential elements of working with interdisciplinary activities and knowing how to carry them out from an organizational point of view. Subsequently, we will describe in detail two examples in which good learning outcomes were achieved. Both examples have arisen from the necessity to attend to all the capacities of the students in low secondary school (12-14 years old) and to give them the possibility to develop their own creativity. Furthermore both examples have an extension activity for students in upper secondary school (16-18 years old) where it is possible to attend to their abstract capacity and connect all their knowledge appropriate to their age. Furthermore, we have chosen these two cases because both are very close to the reality of the students and both have an important background: to the desire for, and valuing of, a critical attitude. In the concluding section, we define some features of these interdisciplinary activities which can be extrapolated to any educational centre. Introduction: A New Approach to Teaching MathematicsMathematics has always been the spine of knowledge that has allowed every scientific, technological and artistic discipline to develop and grow. Let's think, as some examples, about the physical laws, the chemical formulations, the technological structures, the musical scales, the proportions in art, the philosophical logic or M. Gorriz (B) • S. Vilches