About 30 Rancho Pico Junior High School eighth-graders lined a construction-paper runway and sat with their legs crossed on the stage of the multipurpose room, looking up at their math teacher, Nicole Kim.

“Let the show begin!” Kim told her Honors Algebra I students as the popular hit song, “Airplanes” by B.O.B. started up.
Eighth-grader Riley Jones hit the runway, posing for her cheering classmates as she strutted down the stage.

“A positive slope really looks like a shooting star, and I’m sure we all have those days where we could really use a wish right now,” eighth-grader Molly Eichten narrated as Jones showed off the hand-designed T-shirt — complete with glitter shooting stars plotted on a graph and the formula y = 2/3x + 2.

This was definitely not your typical fashion show.

Instead of modeling the latest threads from Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana, the kids were flaunting their newfound knowledge about positive and negative slopes and parallel lines.

In small groups, kids had to come up with creative ways to teach the graphing concepts to their peers. Once they had their theme song down, kids had to design a T-shirt illustrating a graph. One group member would saunter down the runway as his or her teammates explained the concepts of graphing.

“I think it was a good way to remember,” Eichten said after the show. “It was lots of fun.”

The innovative math lesson began last year when Kim realized her students were struggling to understand graphing.
“I wanted to do something where kids would remember the experience,” Kim said.

Kim said the fashion show concept works as the students become experts on their graphing topics. And whenever the kids get hung up on what undefined slope means, Kim just pulls out the kids’ T-shirts and reminds them of their days as fashion models.

“They’re so focused on the fashion show,” Kim said. “They don’t know they are learning so much.”