6-8, 9-12
The consideration of cord length is very important in a bungee jump—too short, and the jumper doesn’t get much of a thrill; too long, and
ouch! In this lesson, students model a bungee jump using a Barbie
® doll and rubber bands. The distance to which the doll will fall is directly proportional to the number of rubber bands, so this context is used to examine linear functions.
9-12
In this activity, students will use the Illuminations Line of Best Fit Interactive
to plot the data from two teams during the 2004‑05 NBA season. In
particular, students will look at the data for total points and minutes
played by each of the starters on the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit
Pistons. The data suggest that Laker Kobe Bryant is an outlier—he
scores more points per minutes than his teammates, which is part of why
some sportswriters have described him as "selfish." But through further
investigation, students will also notice that Piston Ben Wallace is
also an outlier, because he scores fewer points than his teammates.
9-12
In this lesson, students consider the costs of owning a car and ways to lessen those costs. In particular, highway and city mileage are considered, and optimal mileage is calculated using fuel consumption versus speed data.
9-12
This lesson plan for grades 9‑12 is adapted from an article in the January 2000 edition of Mathematics Teacher.
The following activities allow students to explore alternative voting
methods. Students discover what advantages and disadvantages each
method offers and also see that each fails, in some way, to satisfy
some desirable properties.
9-12
Students will plan a road trip, starting in Cleveland, to visit friends in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Boston. However, with the price of gas over $3.00 a gallon, they will figure out the shortest travel route to save on expenses. This lesson investigates three different methods to determine the shortest route: the Nearest Neighbor method, the Cheapest Link method, and the Brute Force method.
6-8, 9-12
We often hear that there are measurements in the body that can be used to predict a person’s height. By graphing different body measurements versus height and comparing their correlation coefficient, students decide which body measurement is the best predictor.
9-12
Students sometimes have difficulty using the order of operations when
evaluating expressions. By converting these expressions into binary
expression trees before evaluating them, students gain a better
understanding of the order of operations. In addition, students learn
to represent algebraic expressions using prefix notation, which is
often called "Polish Notation," because of the nationality of its
inventor, Polish logician Jan Łukasiewicz.
Pre-K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
Need a pentagonal pyramid that's six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5's? You can create all those things and more! Place the images you want, then export it as a PDF or as a JPG image.
Pre-K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
Use this tool to create a spinner to examine experimental and theoretical outcomes.
9-12
This lesson allows students to explore the idea that
rainforest deforestation is occurring at an exponential rate. Students will use
provided research about Amazon deforestation and conduct their own research to
determine whether deforestation is occurring exponentially.
