What happens when a climber falls? Young climbers mathematise a climbing situation

Abstract

Students in Norway and other countries experience vectors as a difficult topic. Four young skilled climbers, who all did well in mathematics at school, participated in the Vector Study (VS). They participated for free and each lesson lasted until the students decided it was over. The idea was to investigate how climbing may function as a basis for students’ development of a vector concept. The teaching goal was the parallelogram law of vector addition. The students investigated what happens when a climber falls. They discussed the situation, and they tested it out in practice. They also performed a supporting activity, a rope‐pulling situation, which provides insight into what happens in the climbing situation. The students’ development is analysed by identifying a) Bishop’s six basic activities, b) the role of angles, and c) manipulation of mental objects. The analysis reveals that relations between a vector’s magnitude and direction was central in the students’ investigations. It is important that students develop two aspects of vectors before the parallelogram law of addition is introduced. These are a) relations between angles and vectors, and b) the zero vector.