When math teachers started chopping onions and doubling recipes on March 19, they discovered what their students already know: real-world problem-solving is harder than it looks, especially when your eyes are watering.
Teachers from three Polk County schools gathered at the Polk County Cooperative Extension office for a Thermal Belt Math Circle afternoon session that combined healthy cooking, community resources and mathematical problem-solving in unexpected ways.
Lindsey Edwards, Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, taught participants about the Mediterranean Diet (“Med Instead of Meds”) and the wide range of services the Polk County Extension Office provides. Teachers prepared Chicken Egg Roll in a Bowl from the Med Instead of Meds website, discovering firsthand the mathematics involved in scaling recipes.
“We had to create one and a half recipes – even for math teachers, this was harder to do using mental math while our eyes were watering from the onions than we expected,” participants noted. “How many teaspoons in a tablespoon? What is double one and two-thirds? This highlighted the need for real-world problem-solving for students as well.”
The tasty, easy-to-prepare meal also provided reminders about the importance of teacher health and wellness. The session concluded with learning about Pancake Numbers through a hands-on logical and spatial activity about stacking pancakes.
The Thermal Belt Math Circle is funded by the North Carolina Network of Math Teachers’ Circles, a network of mathematics educators with a mission of sharing a love of mathematics across the state. Math Teachers’ Circles are professional communities where K-12 teachers and higher education faculty meet regularly to work on rich mathematics problems and informally discuss problems of practice.
The event provided opportunities for teachers from different schools to connect and have conversations they might not normally have during the school day. The Thermal Belt Math Circle serves Polk and Rutherford counties.
A group of teachers will attend Summer 2026 Math Camps to grow the Thermal Belt Math Circle and continue exploring mathematical problem-solving. The circle will plan more events during Math Camp for the 2026-27 school year.
