This activity presents the problem, "there are seven stepping stones and six people." The three people standing on the three left-most stones must exchange places with the people on the three right-most stones. Students work in groups, and then demonstrate their solutions using a variety of ways to model the problem (including actual people, manipulatives, and an applet that requires a Java-enabled browser). From this discussion, the students can begin to formulate rules for how to do the task most efficiently. The latter parts of the lesson may prove too advanced for elementary students; it was primarily designed for the middle school. But elementary students can certainly explore the problem, and its focus on multiple ways of representing the problem may be useful for these students.
First Posted: 7/14/2001 3:52:27 PM
Last Submitted: 9/1/2003 11:51:01 PM
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Homesite Description - This resource is contained in the following Web site
Suzanne's Math Lessons
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Suzanne Alejandre, a middle grades teacher and a Math Forum teacher associate, developed this selection of lesson plans for grades 6-8. It is housed on the Math Forum Web site.
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http://mathforum.org/alejandre/index.html
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