I know how to get kids really excited about math. Show them popcorn. Lots of popcorn. It’s one of my math props when I speak at schools. I pull out bags of popcorn that grow by powers of ten from one to ten to one hundred to one thousand and so on. Are you wondering how big the bags get? That’s exactly what the kids are wondering, and they’re at the edge of their figurative seats waiting to find out (I say “figurative” because they’re usually sitting on the floor). Their growing excitement is abated only momentarily when I tell them they won’t get to eat my popcorn (and wouldn’t want to eat it because I popped it in 1985). They groan but immediately go back to screaming with delight as a bag of popcorn ten times larger than the last one appears before their eyes. 

For years I’ve been using popcorn to demonstrate various math concepts as I act out the plot, if you can call it that, of On Beyond a Million, my powers-of-ten counting book. The popcorn almost never fails to excite children from grades K to 5 or 6, whether they are urban or rural, rich or poor, white or black, X or Y.  On several occasions I dropped the popcorn from my presentation, but I had to put it back because it’s so popular. 

The fact that 21st century children go wild over popcorn as a math prop encourages me wildly. Why? Continue reading →