The Tower of Pisa: such a mystery to so many students who do not yet have the understanding of how and why the famous tower leans to one side the way that it does. Why does it lean? Was it originally designed to lean? What keeps it from falling over? How far does it lean? Is it possible to still walk inside the tower or is the slope of it’s floors too drastic? All these questions could be used in the classroom to introduce a problem that students will solve through the exploration of the tower. Some students will have the opportunity to one day visit this historical site through study abroad trips or family vacations and will be lucky enough to see this wondrous man made phenomena first hand, but for many what they learn in the classroom and bother to research on their own will be all they know about the historical phenomena.

In the context of the classroom, the Tower of Pisa supplies teachers with a real world example from which numerous mathematical problems and calculations can be derived. Among the many problems a teacher can present for students to solve which align with the Common Core State Standards is the problem of finding the angle at which the tower leans. This can be calculated by creating a right triangle from the top of the tower closest to the ground, to the ground, and then across to the base of the tower. Knowing that the created triangle is a right triangle and the given measurements of two sides of that triangle, students can then apply the Pythagorean Theorem to find the angle at which the tower leans.

Using real life and fascinating architectural phenomena such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa can be a wonderful tool to help educators engage and catch the attention of students who as a class hold a wide variety of interests. Students who are planning on seeing the structures in future travels will be interested in learning about it, and students interested in art, architecture, or engineering will find the physical attributes of the tower fascinating. For most students, however, the fact that the tower is a real, historical place in the world will be enough to stir in them the interest and desire to learn more about the leaning tower’s story.