The students gathered around maths teacher Louise Heslip and Dubbo Regional Botanic Garden education officer Karen Hagan for instructions.

"We're going to divide you into two groups, one will do surveying and the other will measure the different equipments," the maths teacher said.

With maps in their hands the children were busy calculating the size of playground equipments with measuring tapes.

Liam Duncan and Callum Pomroy used a protractor to measure angles to find the height of the trees for the council which would be used as shade.

"This will tell us the size of the roots and shows tree health," Callum said.

Meanwhile, a group of children gathered around Mrs Hagan to learn about surveying.

"It's all very accurate, to the centimetre," she said.

The maths teacher said the children were having lots of fun using their maths skills in action.

"It's real life experience," she said. "Most of these kids will use the new playground which they've designed and pegged to put equipment on."

The council's education officer said that this was a Dubbo Regional Botanic Garden outreach project.

Mrs Hagan said the children would greatly benefit from the real and relevant maths exercise.

"It might help them choose their future careers like engineering, planning or surveying," she said.