Illuminations: Airport Numbers

Airport Numbers

The activities at this level use an airport theme to investigate numbers. Students are encouraged to relate the numbers to familiar situations, for example, to use the dimensions of the classroom to describe an airplane.

Learning Objectives
 
Students will:
  • discuss, describe, read, and write about whole numbers or decimal and common fractions

Materials
 
Airport Numbers Activity Sheet

Instructional Plan

Begin the class discussion by brainstorming uses of numbers in airports. If some students have never flown, they should still be able to participate in the discussion.

 

 

Distribute a copy of the Airport Numbers Activity Sheet to each student.

Airport Numbers Activity Sheet

Generally discuss the airport activity sheet with the students. Ask them to tell what they see in each of the pictures and what they think each picture is about.

Tell the students to look at the pictures and find examples of the use of numbers. Spend enough time talking about the pictures and students' own knowledge of airports so that students describe as many different ways as possible of using numbers.

The following observations can be made for each picture:

a. At the check-in counter

  • number of bags
  • weight of each bag
  • dimensions of a bag
  • cost of tickets

b. At the departure gate

  • time (discuss the 24-hour clock used internationally)
  • departure times of other flights
  • dates (discuss the different conventions--month/day/year and day/month/year)
  • flight numbers
  • seat-assignment numbers

c. Runway

  • identification of the airplane
  • runway number

d. Airplane statistics

  • measurement of various attributes (length, width, height, capacity)

Ask the students to work in groups to write descriptions of as wide a variety of uses of numbers as possible in other areas of the airport. They should include numbers in the following forms:

  • Whole numbers
  • Decimal fractions
  • Common fractions
  • Percents

Students can share their responses to the activity sheet with the rest of the class.

Extensions
 
  1. Obtain an airline-flight schedule. Ask the students to study it and find as many different used of numbers as possible.

  2. Have the students collect information about the distances of various routes flown within the United States and internationally from the United States.

    Have the students research the distance of the shortest commercial flight (25 miles from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Appleton, Wisconsin) and the longest commercial flight (at one time, 7,483 miles between Los Angeles, California, and Sydney, Australia).

  3. Have the students use the airline information they collected in extension 2 to create problems, for example, "How many trips between Green Bay and Appleton equal one trip between Los Angeles and Sydney?"

  4. The number on the runway, multiplied by 10 corresponds to the compass heading of the airplane as it is landing. For example, on runway 32, the compass heading as the plan lands is 320 (an L or R after the number indicates the left or right runway, respectively)

    The students might want to find out the range of numbers of compass headings (0 to 360), the numbers that correspond to the points of the compass (90 or 09, on the runway is east; 18 or 180, is south, etc.), and the reason that the number 360 was chosen for the number of degrees in a circle (the ancients thought that the complete cycle of one year contained 360 days).

  5. Students can research airplanes of other sizes and write a description to compare airplanes of different sizes.

NCTM Standards and Expectations
 
Number & Operations 6-8
  1. Develop meaning for integers and represent and compare quantities with them.
  2. Compare and order fractions, decimals, and percents efficiently and find their approximate locations on a number line.
  3. Develop and use strategies to estimate the results of rational-number computations and judge the reasonableness of the results.

References
 
  • Calvin Irons and Rosemary Irons. "IDEAS: Numbers and Language." The Arithmetic Teacher. January, 1993, 40, 5. p 264 - 77.
  
1 period   

NCTM Resources

Principles and Standards for School Mathematics
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Thinkfinity Verizon Foundation
More and Better Mathematics for All Students
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