Building a Smokehouse – The Geometry of Prisms

In this module for grades six and seven, students learn how to build a smokehouse modeled after ones currently used by the Yup’ik people. Through this task, students construct models to generalize properties of rectangles to three-dimensional rectangular prisms. Further investigation into triangles and triangular prisms arise while designing roofs for the structures. The hands-on activities lead students to understand prisms in general.

Includes one teacher resource, one poster, and one DVD.

About the Series Math in a Cultural Context

This series is a supplemental math curriculum based on the traditional wisdom and practices of the Yup’ik people of southwest Alaska. The result of more than a decade of collaboration between math educators and Yup’ik elders, these modules connect cultural knowledge to school mathematics. Students are challenged to communicate and think mathematically as they solve inquiry-oriented problems, which require creative, practical and analytical thinking. Classroom-based research strongly suggests that students engaged in this curriculum can develop deeper mathematical understandings than students who engage only with a procedure-oriented, paper-and-pencil curriculum.