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Bob Miller Placing Value on Maya Math Program Title: Lost King of the Maya Subject(s): Mathematics, Social Studies Grade Level: 6-8

Students working with teacher Bob Miller attempt to determine the rules that govern the way Maya numbers are written using some examples of Maya numbers that have been converted into Arabic numbers.

Seventh graders at Inza R. Wood Middle School in Wilsonville, Oregon, study the chronology and culture of early civilizations of the Americas. The school's emphasis on integrated technology and participation in the MayaQuest distance learning program encouraged the seventh-grade teaching team to design an interdisciplinary unit on the Maya.

For Miller, the NOVA program "Lost King of the Maya" aired at just the right time. Miller, who has been teaching for 12 years, showed the NOVA program over several class periods. Students were already familiar with the Maya system for writing symbols; Miller complemented that knowledge with an activity on place value and number theory similar to the one in the Spring 2001 NOVA Teacher's Guide using resources he found on the Web.

Miller usually introduces place value by having students look at a base system other than base 10. This time he devised a "pure" base 20 system for students that was similar to the Maya number system. Students were asked to be archeologists and were given a worksheet with some Maya numerals and their Arabic equivalents, as if these were the few numbers that had been decoded. Students then determined the values of other numerals and described the general structure of the Maya number system. Students converted the numbers from one number system into the other, noting patterns and formulating rules as they did so.

Miller says students figured out the rules for representing numbers in the ones place fairly easily. Determining the rules for the upper place values (20s and then 400s) proved increasingly difficult. Students also had to adjust to a system of numbers that were read vertically. Miller observed that once students let go of their conventions, they started to apply what they knew of the regularity of the base 10 system to the base 20 system.

Students then examined the Maya Long Count Calendar and mapped Maya intervals onto their customary system for reporting dates. Finally, students wrote reports to a fictitious foundation describing the structure of the Maya number system and explaining how they reached their conclusions. Students hypothesized how Maya mathematicians added and subtracted two numbers. A few students even attempted multiplication. The letter was scored using a math rubric and the district writing rubric.

For more information about Miller's project, you can e-mail him at: millerb@wlwv.k12.or.us —Kristina Ransick