Jenny Quinn travels with math in her backpack. She unpacks it piece by piece: bright, 3D-printed shapes that click together into perfect rectangles. As she moves the Fibonacci sequence puzzle around, ...

Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Jenny Quinn, executive director of the Seattle Universal Math Museum, shows off a solved Fibonacci sequence puzzle. (GeekWire Photo / Maddie Stoll) Jenny Quinn travels with math in her backpack. She ...