Imagine that you’re a mother of three. One of your children is six years old and is playing on the front lawn with his friends. Suddenly, you hear screaming and gunshots from every direction. You look out the window to see that your son has been shot and there is a car speeding away.
In Chicago this happens often, children die from gun violence. Mothers, fathers, friends, co-workers, anyone can get shot. According to the Chicago Tribune, August of 2016 was the deadliest month since 1991. Comparably in 1992, there were 943 homicides in Chicago and 2016 Chicago there were about 530 homicides and 3,131 shootings. Do we want to raise our children in such danger?
As part of our most recent unit, artist Krista Wortendyke visited Roberto Clemente Community Academy to talk about the deaths caused by gun violence in the summer of 2010. She told us her experience of how she went to every spot homicides occurred that summer and photographed them. She then decided to use her artistic talent by organizing her photos into a graphical display, representing the skyline of Chicago.
In math class, we are focusing on statistics by comparing the number of homicides and shootings this year in comparison to other cities as a way to ascertain any root causes. We will show our findings using the same graphical form as the artist by creating memorials to the victims. We will also present our mathematical findings using a piece of software called Piktocharts. Hopefully our voices are heard and we can put an end to this violence.