Welcome to Graph Theory on the Farm!

Graph Theory on the Farm is a collection of fun, interactive activities and games which can be used to introduce ideas from Graph Theory and Discrete Maths to groups of all ages. As you might have guessed from the title, the activities are all based on scenarios and problems that might arise for fictional farmers.

Graph Theory is a central topic in pure maths, but also has a huge range of applications, perhaps most notably in Computer Science but also in biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, economics... and perhaps farming! Graphs - sometimes called networks - give us a way to represent the connections between different objects. The maths you see here might not look like what you think of when you imagine maths: there aren't very many equations to solve or long calculations (although some of the activities do provide an opportunity to practice mental arithmetic) - instead, the emphasis is on problem-solving and logical thinking, two key skills for all of maths and so much more. Graph theory is often particularly appealing to those who like to think visually: we often represent the "things" graphpically with dots, and connections between the things with lines joining the dots.

The activities are designed so that they can be run without any specialist knowledge or equipment. Most just need pens and paper in addition to printouts of the pages you download, and a few use other items which should be readily available in most classrooms.

All the resources are free to use for any non-commercial purpose, but it is very helpful for us if we can keep a record of how many people are using GTotF. So, if you have used these resources (or are planning to), we would be very grateful if you could email me to let me know how you're using them - and we'd also love to hear any feedback (especially constructive criticism!).

Please note that these resources are still under development, so keep checking back over the next few months for new content. Also please let us know if there are any additions you would find particularly useful!

You can learn more about the team behind GTotF here, read about how GTotF fits into the school curriculum, or just go to the activities.