Math in a Cultural Context

Brush Education no longer publishes the Math in a Cultural Context series, but you can download the modules and storybooks for free under a Creative Commons license. Visit the University of Alaska Fairbanks website at uaf.edu/mcc for the free downloads.

This series is a supplemental math curriculum based on the traditional wisdom and practices of the Yup’ik people of southwest Alaska. The result of more than a decade of collaboration between math educators and Yup’ik elders, these modules connect cultural knowledge to school mathematics. Students are challenged to communicate and think mathematically as they solve inquiry-oriented problems, which require creative, practical and analytical thinking. Classroom-based research strongly suggests that students engaged in this curriculum can develop deeper mathematical understandings than students who engage only with a procedure-oriented, paper-and-pencil curriculum.