Learning The Real Number System With Maps

Learning The Real Number System With Maps

You Will Need:

Construction Paper

Tape

Scissors

Map World (google maps works great for materials)

Map of 2 unconnected Countries

Map of State within one of the countries

Map of County within the State

Map of Town Within the County

Remembering the differences between natural, whole, integer, rational, irrational and real numbers can be confusing for anyone. How can  a natural number be a rational number but not all rational numbers are natural numbers? To remedy to this confusion let's use maps. 

First cut out a picture of a world map and tape it on a piece of paper (you may also draw the pic). Picking two countries on the map that are not connected by other countries (North America and Australia work great)

Now pick a state within one of the countries, cut it out, and tape it to the paper

Now pick a county or city within the state, cut it out and tape it to the paper

Now pick a town within the county or street within the city, cut it out and tape it to the paper

We now get to label each map.

Label the map of the country Real Numbers, since all of the numbers in this article are real numbers

Label the country that you found states and cities in Rational Numbers

Label The State Integer Numbers

Label The City or County Whole Numbers

Label the town or street Natural Numbers

Finally, label the other country Irrational Numbers.

Now using the United States as an example lets ask the question, if you live in New York City, do you live in the United States?

What about the question

If you live in the United States must you live in New York City? 

As you can see, maps can help us learn the real number system