In teaching Middle School students (often around year 8 or 9), the topic of surds comes up here (I have to teach this topic) - and is often met with derision on commencement of the topic and during the topic. When asked, the students' derision is usually related to the fact this is a 'dry' subject with a perception of it being not practical and not of any use (usually with the 'when are we ever going to use this in our life?' being asked).

I have found that the assessment (test) results are not all that great compared to other topics - with questions about these either unanswered or not completed.

There are a bounty of websites that have the basic tutorials as to what surds are - for example, the [Math is Fun page on surds](https://www.mathsisfun.com/surds.html) provides a colorful, yet still dry representation of the definition

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> When we can't simplify a number to remove a square root (or cube root etc) then it is a surd.
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and that

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> The surds have a decimal which goes on forever without repeating, and are Irrational Numbers.
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With examples, such as:

$\sqrt{4} = 2$ is not a surd  

$\sqrt{2} = 1.4142135...$ is a surd

**Is there a practical means to teach surds?**