Opportunity in obstacles

Students in the Calculus for the Natural Sciences class exercise their learning outside.

It’s 7:45 a.m. on the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) campus, and the sun has just angled into Ordean Court. It’s there that Angela Sharp is busy setting up a Calculus obstacle course.

UMD students work through an obstacle course outside on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus.

UMD students learn calculus while working through an obstacle course.

Sharp, an instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, has been teaching Calculus in the Natural Sciences for 24 years. In that time, she’s learned that “handing students a table of data and asking them to analyze it sticks with them far less than actually being part of the data collection.”

And so this morning, she’s asking her students to record elapsed time and distance measurements of their peers as they navigate an obstacle course featuring a series of playful tasks like egg balancing and hopscotch. Those records will help these students estimate the instantaneous rate of change, says Sharp, and help them understand the foundational idea of a derivative.

By 8 a.m., the course is set and the class has arrived. Sharp demonstrates how to navigate the obstacle course and then distributes measurement tools and clipboards to the students. For the next 15 minutes, they record their data, moving their bodies and laughing together before returning refreshed to the classroom to make their calculations.

This class experience is part of the Swenson College of Science and Engineering’s SAIL program (Swenson Active and Innovative Learning), which aims to engage students in learning beyond the traditional classroom setting. Aside from the obstacle course activity, Sharp’s students have also ventured out onto Lake Superior aboard UMD’s Research Vessel Blue Heron, and across campus with tools like GPS devices and C02 meters to gain a more intimate understanding of different mathematical concepts. For Sharp and her students, the change in scenery that comes with learning outside of the classroom is part of what keeps things exciting.

A group of students are seated outside on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus as their professor hands out clipboards.

Students at UMD often step outside of the traditional classroom setting to further understand their coursework.