"When Will I Ever Use This?" 18 Places School Maths and Science Show Up Every Day
Almost every chapter of school Maths and Science shows up in an ordinary Indian day: in a cricket score, a shopping bill, a pressure cooker or a matka of cold water. When children see that, a subject stops being "something for the exam" and becomes a way to understand their own world.
Every child asks "When will I ever use this?" at some point. Here are 18 honest answers, linked to the class where each idea is taught, plus simple ways to point them out at home or in class.
Maths you already use every day
- Percentages (Class 7–8): "40% off" or "Buy 2, get 1 free"? Buy 2 get 1 is only about 33% off, so the 40% sale is the better deal.
- Ratio and proportion (Class 6–7): a recipe for 4 people needs to serve 6, so multiply every ingredient by 1.5.
- Averages and rates (Class 6–9): cricket run rate. 150 runs in 20 overs is 7.5 runs an over.
- Area (Class 6–8): how many 2 ft × 2 ft tiles for a 12 ft × 10 ft room? 120 ÷ 4 = 30 tiles, plus a few spare.
- Simple and compound interest (Class 8): ₹10,000 in a bank at 7% a year becomes ₹11,400 after 2 years with simple interest, and ₹11,449 with compound interest.
- Speed, distance and time (Class 7): a 360 km train journey at 60 km/h takes 6 hours.
- Coordinates (Class 9): cinema seat F-12 is a row and a column, just like a point (x, y). Map pins work the same way.
- Probability (Class 10): a "70% chance of rain" forecast is why you carry an umbrella.
- Trigonometry (Class 10): when the sun is at 45°, a tree's height equals its shadow's length. That's how heights are measured without climbing.
Try the ideas yourself in our free Maths practice for every class.
Science you see every day
- Evaporation (Class 6–9): a clay matka keeps water cool. Water seeps through, evaporates from the outside and takes heat with it.
- Microorganisms (Class 8): milk becomes curd overnight because bacteria (Lactobacillus) turn its sugar into acid.
- Acids and bases (Class 7, 10): an antacid neutralises extra stomach acid. Baking soda releases gas that makes dhokla batter rise.
- Rusting (Class 7): an iron gate rusts in the monsoon. Paint keeps air and water away from the metal.
- Pressure and boiling point (Class 8–9): a pressure cooker cooks dal faster because higher pressure makes water boil at a higher temperature.
- Inertia (Class 9): passengers lurch forward when a bus brakes suddenly. That's why seat belts matter.
- Sound (Class 8–9): an empty room echoes; furniture and curtains absorb the sound.
- Refraction of light (Class 10): a pencil looks bent in a glass of water, and a pool looks shallower than it really is.
- Electric energy (Class 10): one "unit" on the electricity bill is 1 kilowatt-hour, a 1,000 W heater running for 1 hour.
Many of these can be tried in our free interactive Science labs: predict, test, then see why.
How our Maths and Science labs connect lessons to daily life
Reading that "sugar dissolves faster in hot water" is easy to forget. Watching it happen, after guessing first, sticks. New Age Learning's free interactive labs are built around that idea. Every experiment follows the same four steps:
- Predict: "What do you think will happen?"
- Set up: choose the materials, numbers or conditions.
- Run it and watch: see the result, and why it happened.
- Answer questions: quick questions with instant feedback check the idea is clear.
Each science experiment ends with a "Science around you" section that links the result to something the child sees at home, and the labs use Indian stories and everyday situations throughout. Here is how some of them connect:
- Float or Sink? Why some things float and others sink. Seen in daily life: ice floating in a glass, and a steel ship floating while a steel coin sinks.
- The Dissolving Race: what makes things dissolve faster. Seen in daily life: sugar disappearing faster in hot chai than in cold water.
- Evaporation and the Water Cycle: where water goes when it dries up. Seen in daily life: clothes drying faster on a sunny, windy day, and rain clouds.
- Separate the Mixture: ways to separate mixed materials. Seen in daily life: sieving atta, straining tea leaves, winnowing grain.
- Build a Circuit: how electricity flows in a loop. Seen in daily life: a torch, the switches at home, and why a loose wire stops a fan.
- The Magnet Test: which materials magnets attract. Seen in daily life: fridge magnets, magnetic catches on cupboard doors, a compass.
- Shadow Play: how shadows form and change. Seen in daily life: long evening shadows, and why shade moves through the day.
- The Starch Detective: finding starch in foods. Seen in daily life: rice, potatoes and rotis on the dinner plate.
- What Does a Seed Need? What makes seeds sprout. Seen in daily life: sprouting moong at home, and seeds in a garden or farm.
- Maths Magical Lab, fractions: seeing parts of a whole. Seen in daily life: sharing a pizza, a roti or a chocolate bar fairly.
- Maths Magical Lab, place value: why a digit's place changes its value. Seen in daily life: reading prices and counting ₹10, ₹100 and ₹500 notes.
- Maths Magical Lab, shapes and patterns: shapes, symmetry and repeating patterns. Seen in daily life: floor tiles, rangoli, window grills.
The labs work on any phone or computer with no equipment, and many suggest a simple follow-up to try at home. Teachers can assign a whole lab or just a few pages to a class and see each student's answers. Start with Science Lab – Basic 1 or browse all labs.
Why seeing the use changes how children feel about a subject
This isn't only a nice idea; it has been tested. In a well-known study published in the journal Science (Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009), 262 high-school students in science classes were split into two groups. One group regularly wrote short pieces about how what they were learning connected to their own lives. The other group just summarised the lessons.
The students who had low confidence in science gained the most. By the end of the semester they were more interested in the subject, and in the group whose grades were measured, they earned higher grades, close to two-thirds of a letter grade. A later classroom study by the same research team found similar gains for lower-performing students.
The lesson for parents and teachers: the children who say "I'm bad at maths" are often the ones who benefit most from seeing where it is used. India's National Education Policy 2020 points the same way, asking schools to use hands-on, experiential learning at every stage.
Five things to try at home this week
- Let your child check the bill. At the grocery shop or a restaurant, ask them to add it up or work out the discount before you pay.
- Read the electricity bill together. How many units did the house use? Which appliance uses the most? Divide the bill by the units to find the cost of one unit.
- Scale a recipe. Ask them to change a recipe from 4 people to 6, then cook it together.
- Predict before you explain. Before boiling water in a pressure cooker or dropping a coin in a glass of water, ask "What do you think will happen?" A wrong guess makes the answer stick.
- Ask "Where did you see today's chapter?" Make it a dinner-table question. Answers like "the bus braking" or "the cricket score" count.
None of these replace school or homework. They give children a reason to care about what they learn there.
For teachers: a one-minute "where is this used?" opener
Start a new chapter with one minute on where it shows up, before any definitions:
- Show one everyday example from the lists above, as a photo or a quick demonstration.
- Ask one question: "Why does this happen?" or "How would you work this out?"
- Return to it at the end of the chapter and let students answer it properly.
Once a month, ask students to write two or three lines on where they noticed the chapter outside school. This is the same kind of short reflection that helped lower-confidence students in the research above, and it takes five minutes of class time.
Frequently asked questions
What are some examples of maths in daily life?
Working out discounts while shopping, scaling a recipe, cricket run rates, bank interest, tiling a floor, and travel time on a train journey.
What are some examples of science in everyday life?
A matka cooling water by evaporation, milk turning to curd because of bacteria, a pressure cooker cooking faster, a pencil looking bent in water, and units on an electricity bill.
How can I make maths interesting for my child?
Connect each chapter to something they see or do, such as shopping, cricket or cooking. Let them predict and try before you explain.
Does connecting lessons to real life improve marks?
Research suggests it can, especially for children with low confidence in a subject. In one study, students who wrote about how science applied to their lives became more interested and earned higher grades.
How do interactive labs help children connect science to daily life?
In a lab, the child predicts, runs the experiment and sees the result, then links it to something at home, like sugar dissolving in chai or clothes drying in the sun. New Age Learning's free labs end each experiment with a "Science around you" section that does exactly this.
What is experiential learning in NEP 2020?
Learning by doing: hands-on activities, experiments and real-life connections instead of memorising alone. NEP 2020 asks schools to use it at every stage.