Ariens joins in effort to emphasize math

Oct. 10, 2019

By David Nordby

The Brillion News

GREEN BAY – Generations of students have asked a simple question while sitting in math classes in school.

“When will I ever use this in the real world?”

Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) Task Force has paired up with businesses around Wisconsin to help take kids beyond the mundane math lessons and show them how math applies to real life skills through a series of video lessons.

That includes Ariens Company, whose latest video premiered last week at the 5th Annual Get Real Math Premiere at the Meyer Theatre in Green Bay.

Videos take real life situations, snow blowing in the case of the latest video from Ariens, and shows how math is utilized.

“Each (video) presents the problem, presents all the math behind it, how to solve it,” Brian Witt, chairman of the STEM Task Force and an Ariens employee for 13 years, said.

The video concept started as a way to answer the question of how math applies to the real world.

“Math teachers hear that all the time from kids who don’t like math. This was the whole point of these videos when they started six years ago was to answer that question,” Witt said.

Ann Franz, Director of the NEW Manufacturing Alliance, said that they met with math teachers who asked if the group could help show kids relevancy to math lessons. It was a perfect partnership, Franz said, because they wanted to expose kids to the manufacturing industry.

Please see the complete story in the Oct. 10, 2019 print edition of The Brillion News.