Narrow Results

Pedestrian evacuation at the gate of primary school after school is always a tricky question bothering us. In order to improve the safety and efficiency of pedestrian evacuation at the gate of primary school, adult–child matching behavior after school is analyzed. We propose four adult–child matching strategies considering order or random of adults and children in the matching process. Fusing the matching strategy into a cellular automata (CA)-based pedestrian simulation model and taking the Linyi No. 40 middle school, China as the case study, the adult–child matching behavior is simulated on the platform of MATLAB software. The simulation results indicate that evacuation efficiency of the strategy (adults are orderly distributed in the first waiting area and children are orderly queuing up) reaches the maximum value among the four strategies. Effective matching strategies could reduce pedestrian conflicts. The randomly children and randomly adults are all the negative impacts for evacuation. Orderly evacuation process could reduce pedestrian conflicts. Compared with the randomly children, the effect on evacuation efficiency of the randomly adults is larger. A reasonable number of evacuated pedestrians at a time could improve the whole evacuation efficiency, and we advise the Linyi No. 40 middle school to evacuate three classes at a time.

Spanish primary and secondary school curricula comprise several contents, learning outcomes and assessment criteria directly related with probability and approximate calculus. Some of them refer to situations modeled by the students, which entail not only uncertainty but also imprecision. For this reason, different techniques including fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets theory could be applied when dealing with this kind of situations in the classroom. Several teaching situations handling imprecise concepts in primary and secondary schools are suggested from a theoretical point of view. These more exible ways of reasoning could be combined with the traditional probability approach, allowing to tackle more general problems and not only those involving exact calculations or specific numerical assignments. Moreover, this type of approaches will provide the students with tools to manage imprecision as a mathematical tool in their personal life.

The main aim of the present work is the content analysis of the Portuguese National Curriculum and the Primary School textbooks where microorganisms are concerned. The content analysis through categories created a priori were used as methodology. In all analysed documents the topic microorganisms did not emerge in a clear way. However, several indirect themes related to microorganisms were found in the National Curriculum and textbooks of the Environment Study issue. These themes can be explored with pupils through experimental activities. The Science Education in primary schools can be introduced with proposals of activities involving microorganisms and contributing to a better understanding of the children's world.

The present study aims at singling out some distinctive aspects of teaching and learning elementary mathematics. We avail ourselves of the concept of resonance in order to make sense of regular and reiterated behavior patterns observed in classroom practice, in teachers and students alike. By so doing, we try to describe some phenomena that characterize the emergence of mathematical concepts and skills in primary school. Embracing a systemic perspective, we suggest an account of the complexity of didactic systems that underscores the interaction between students' actions and teachers' decisions in the context of multiplicative problem solving. The ultimate goal of our research, therefore, is describing the constant and specific features of teachers' behavior, as they emerge out of the mutual interplay among the various agents in a didactic system.

This chapter reports a mathematical modelling task which was conducted during a 5-day Mathematical Modelling Outreach (MMO) event held in Singapore in June 2010. During the event, both primary and secondary school students in Singapore worked on various mathematical modelling activities. Students from Australia schools were also invited to take part in this mathematical modelling event. This chapter documents the mathematical modelling processes of the primary and secondary school students, as they worked on a modelling problem involving designing a 4-man tent for beach-goers. The mathematical processes were discussing, planning, experimenting and verifying.

Are children capable of designing? This chapter describes how two groups of Primary 5 pupils worked on a mathematical modelling task in designing a 5-room flat. The modelling task was structured in a rich context that required the pupils to apply their curricular knowledge involving geometry and measurement towards coming up with an ideal floor plan. The modelling process describes the various conceptualisations the pupils conceived as models. As designers, they were capable of mathematising and justifying why they designed the floor plan to be as such. Finally, implications are discussed with respect to using mathematical modelling as problem-solving to support mathematics education reformed efforts.

This chapter describes how some Primary 5 pupils from Singapore interpreted, carried out and presented a paper-folding mathematical modelling task over a period of three days during a Mathematical Modelling Outreach. The students who worked in groups of 3 had to design and fold a paper boat that could carry different loads. The data shows that the students were deeply engaged in the modelling task and used several mathematical concepts to come up with a workable design. We discuss the implications of such tasks for the Singapore mathematics curriculum which is centred on problem solving.