3-5
Oil spills are in the news. To make real-world connections, this lesson provides hands-on experiences with mixing oil and water, provides surface area information about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and gives students opportunities to estimate small oil spills of their own making.
3-5, 6-8
Who can build the best boat? In this lesson, students are challenged to create aluminum foil boats that are then tested by filling them with plastic bears until they sink. The lesson serves as a fun, hands-on way to collect data. The data from two attempts is collected and used to make two class box-and-whisker plots with some surprising results.
6-8
In this lesson, students use geoboards to explore the relationships between the area of a square and its side length. They also gain a numeric and geometric understanding of squaring a number and envision what the square root of a number looks like.
3-5
Use this applet to determine the volume of a box by filling it with cubes, rows of cubes, or layers of cubes. Determine the surface area as well by using the box's net.
6-8
In this lesson, students use an interactive applet to investigate the formula for the volume of a rectangular prism. Students will construct two origami boxes and use centimeter cubes to measure and compare the volume of the boxes. Students will also analyze how changing the dimensions of the prism affects its volume.
6-8, 9-12
This lesson can be used for students to discover the relationship between dimension and volume. Students create two rectangular prisms and two cylinders to determine which holds more popcorn. Students then justify their observation by analyzing the formulas and identifying the dimension(s) with the largest impact on the volume.
6-8, 9-12
In this lesson, students use polydrons to create nets of rectangular prisms. They discover that there are many configurations for rectangular prisms with the same volume, and determine that certain configurations minimize surface area. The lesson continues in a discovery activity related to building the most cost-efficient and appealing fish tank.
6-8
In this lesson, students will use formulas they have explored for the volume of a cylinder and convert them into the same volume for rectangular prisms while trying to minimize the surface area. Various real world cylindrical objects will be measured and converted into a prism to hold the same volume. As an extension, students may design and create a rectangular prism container according to their dimensions to compare and contrast with the cylinder.
6-8
In this lesson, students will use dimensions of round and square hay bales to calculate and compare volumes. They also calculate unit prices to determine which hay bale is the better value. Finally, students explore how to fit round and square bales into a barn to maximize volume, and decide which type of hale bale is the best choice.
3-5, 6-8
In this lesson students will review plotting points and labeling axis. Students generate a set of random points all located within the first quadrant. Students will plot and connect the points and then create a short story that could describe the graph. Students must ensure that the graph is labeled correctly and that someone could recreate their graph from their story.
