"Math is in everything," says National Board Certified math teacher Krystal Jones.

And in her San Jose classroom, it's an implement for positive social change.

Krystal, who teaches at Hoover Middle School, illustrates her subject by guiding students through hands-on, socially-conscious engineering projects. The focus is on solving social problems, as opposed to those in textbooks.

Drought, systemic inequity and homelessness have been among the areas students have examined. In the process, they've applied concepts including probability, proportion and percentages.

"One day, I made this decision: that every single thing I do in the classroom is going to be conscious in some way," Krystal explains.

Accordingly, she put her engineering background (which includes serving as Engineering Education Leader at San Jose's The Tech Interactive museum) to work.

Focusing on social and global responsibility, Krystal began presenting her students with design challenges. Often, these wound up being interdisciplinary: teaching Black history, social studies and science, in addition to math.

Krystal, who gave a presentation on "Engineering in the Classroom" during the 2024 California STEAM Symposium, in Long Beach, will also be speaking at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Annual Meeting and Exposition, which takes place September 25th through 28th in Chicago. Here's the link for more information.

Krystal talked about her creative journey, how she first came to incorporate social consciousness into her curriculum and some of the resulting projects she and her students have created.