Seventh-graders at Erik Ramstad Middle School line up to receive their taco in a bag reward in March. Teacher Emelia Braun came up with a creative way to boost student performance on math quizzes.

Mathematics can be both fun and tasty, students in Emelia Braun’s seventh-grade math classes at Erik Ramstad Middle School have learned.

Braun set out last semester to improve her students’ performance on math facts and math literacy.

Kids took quizzes on factors and multiples, the metric system, on calculating area, perimeter, fractions, decimals, percentages and integers, among other seventh-grade math facts.

To boost their interest, she promised that students who met a set goal each week would receive part of a taco in a bag, which was served up on a special day in March.

“The average scores increased nine percent over the eight weeks,” said Braun.

Thirty-four percent of the students got the entire taco in the bag. Some of the students ended up with just a piece or two of the entire taco, but at least 81 percent of the students reached their goal six or more weeks.

The seventh-graders answered a total of 104,580 problems during the “Let’s Taco ‘Bout Math” challenge.