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.
3-5, 6-8
Students identify patterns in a geometrical figure (based on triangles) and build a foundation for the understanding of fractals.
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
Students use equations to determine eBay profit on new technology. EBay is an online auction agency. For a limited time after a “new” product’s street release date, it is possible to track the profit that sellers make for auctioning them on eBay. Students use previous data of selling prices to derive a linear equation for the “closing bid price” on a product.
3-5, 6-8
The rules of Krypto are amazingly simple — combine five numbers using
the standard arithmetic operations to create a target number. Finding a
solution to one of the more than 3 million possible combinations can be
quite a challenge, but students love it. And you’ll love that the game
helps to develop number sense, computational skill, and an
understanding of the order of operations.
6-8
We are bombarded in the media with ads offering 0% interest or teaser rates of 2.9%. These ads are devised to entice us to sign up for these limited time offers that the companies tell us would be crazy to miss. The goal of these ads is to get us to use credit to buy on impulse. If we take the time to analyze the offer, we might realize that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. In this lesson, students will work through a credit card scenario with a teaser rate, minimum payments, fees, and rate increases for being late.
6-8, 9-12
In this lesson, students purchase the common items used in their mathematics classroom such as desks, chairs, calculators, manipulatives, etc. They are given a budget that they must work within plus coupons that they must use when making their purchases. The lesson lets students have fun while applying the concepts of discount and percent. Since students use a purchase register to track their purchases, it also serves as a review of integer operations.
3-5, 6-8
Using data from the Internet, students summarize information about party affiliation and ages at inauguration of Presidents of the United States in frequency tables and graphs. This leads to a discussion about categorical data (party affiliations) vs. numerical data (inauguration ages) and histograms vs bar graphs.
3-5, 6-8
Students hear geometry terminology around them every day. By playing the games in this lesson, students use their knowledge regarding regular and irregular polygons to explore the properties of the shapes and learn new vocabulary when identifying characteristics of shapes.
6-8
In this lesson, students develop a deep conceptual understanding between remainders and the decimal part of quotients. They learn how remainders and group size work together to influence the results that are displayed on a calculator. Students use beans to physically represent quotients that have remainders, and they compare remainders written as fractions of whole groups to the results obtained with a calculator.
