Kids + Trains = Algebra? : Metro Rail Becomes Unlikely Classroom for Students Learning About Math

What do you get when you add 85 school kids to one Metro Rail Blue Line train?

In South Los Angeles, you get the equation for an unlikely math lesson.

Youngsters from Edison Junior High School are learning the basics of algebra by hopping aboard southbound trains and observing station stops, fellow passengers and businesses between their neighborhood in the unincorporated Florence area and downtown Long Beach.

The train is the basis of a two-month mathematics curriculum that teachers say is already putting seventh-graders on the right track for college.

Generations of adults remember algebra as the tricky system of calculating with abstract variables instead of numbers. Algebra class was the one with all those x ‘s and y ‘s to the nth power and those oddball fractions filled with minus and plus signs. Polynomial equations, the teacher called them.

Algebra remains a thorn in the side of today’s teen-agers. But educators say the Computer Age hasn’t subtracted from algebra’s importance.

“Algebra is the way to higher-level courses that are the entryway to college and a better way of life,” said Gerardo Mendieta, mathematics coordinator at Edison and leader of the unusual series of excursions that end today. .

As children wearing “I’m Getting Ready for Algebra” T-shirts crowded aboard the train and scribbled their observations onto clipboards recently, Mendieta explained how Boston educator Robert Moses devised the technique of using train rides to introduce abstract symbols.

The mathematics concept of the number line might be represented by a Metro Rail map, for example. The Florence Avenue station where the students boarded would be the number zero and the Willow Street station where they were to disembark would be eight, Mendieta said.

The train ride south could represent positive numbers, the ride north could represent negatives, he said. There are also lessons from speed and distance that youngsters can use to set up their own equations.

“The whole idea is to teach students that there’s more to numbers than quantity,” math teacher Tanya Richardson said. “We’ll be referring to this trip daily during this session. The kids will be able to open up more in front of their friends because this is a commonly shared experience.”

Sarah Hill, who teaches English-language classes to the mostly Latino students at Edison, said she has revised her curriculum to take advantage of the train rides, provided free by the RTD. “The kids will attach these real experiences to a vocabulary,” she said.

All 560 seventh-graders will use the Blue Line method for learning algebra this year, officials said. Grants totaling $33,500 obtained by teacher Judith Day have paid for such things as textbooks that include localized Metro Rail line landmarks and measurements.

Officials said they are convinced the train-ride curriculum works. Before trying it the first time last summer, they counted only 20 seventh-graders who were ready to take eighth-grade algebra. But after the Blue Line outing, 80 youngsters were qualified for the course, according to Assistant Principal Yvonne Mason.

“Some of these kids were on farms in Mexico last year,” Mendieta said. “These kids need to understand how their world works; they need to be introduced to the kind of complex thinking everybody needs in this society.”

At the trip’s midway point, youngsters spent several hours writing journals, sketching and drawing maps at Veterans Memorial Park, near the Willow train station. Some admitted they weren’t certain how a train ride would tie in with algebra class.

“I’ll have to wait and see how this helps,” said Elizabeth Medina, 12. Classmate Jose Orozco said his first exposure to algebra could be summed up as frustration + confusion anxiety.

“Algebra is like math, but it’s harder,” Jose, 11, said. “We’re just starting, but it’s already getting hard.”

Mendieta laughed.

“At the end of the month, they’ll see the connection,” he said. “From this experience we’ll get all the math we need. Numbers are all around us.”

That said, the kids headed back to school aboard train No. 104.