Tulsa Students Learn Math By Building House

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Students at Madison Middle School are figuring out how to use math in real-life situations.

The 25 students used their math skills to build an 8-foot by 11-foot modular house.

Frank Dickinson, instructional dean at Tulsa Tech, is overseeing the project.

"They'll figure area, they'll figure perimeter of it, they'll figure how to build a truss, they'll figure the geometry in the truss to hold the roof up," he said.

The program was developed by If I Had A Hammer, a group designed to provide kids with practical uses for mathematics.

Also included are 24 classroom sessions. A previous Madison class raised its math scores 30 percent after the program.

Hundreds of thousands of kids in more than 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada have gone through the If I Had A Hammer program.