SWTJC STUDENTS USE REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS TO LEARN MATH

South West Texas Junior College Ascender students in math instructor Nikol Alejandro’s class made tortillas as an activity to connect the concept of solving proportions with real life applications and analyzing proportional relationships. The activity followed a lecture and practice.  

Students were divided into two groups and asked to research a tortilla recipe that made ten 8-inch tortillas.  Then each group was assigned a number of tortillas that required an adjustment to the recipe.  Group 1 was supposed to calculate the amount of each item in the recipe for 8 tortillas and Group 2 for 12 tortillas.  

Students used proportions to find out the required amount of water, flour, oil, and salt. Once they adjusted the recipe, they proceed to make tortilla dough. Group 1 struggled with the dough being too thick due to a measuring or calculating error. 

According to instructor Alejandro, students had a lot of fun baking and tasting tortillas in class. Some attempted to make perfect 8-inch tortillas by using a measuring tape. They also experimented with making triangular and square tortillas.