The Algebra Project develops and implements curricular interventions that build on experiences students find interesting--and understand intuitively--to help them shift from arithmetic to algebraic thinking.

A ride on a subway, a trip on a bus, or a community walking tour become the basis for understanding displacements, while stories about "making do" help students grasp the difference between equivalence and equality. The concepts of displacements and equivalence then provide a new approach to understanding integers.
 
Teachers use inquiry-based teaching strategies that build on students' concrete experiences, then coach them to construct new experiences that will help them find answers by asking increasingly sophisticated questions.