6-8
In this lesson, students determine the time it takes for a roller coaster to reach the bottom of its tallest drop. They use tables and graphs to analyze the falls of different roller coasters. Students conclude the study by creating their own roller coaster and providing an analysis of its fall.
6-8
In this lesson, students look at patterns in calendars to determine the day of the week for a particular date. Students also use division to explain why those patterns occur, and then relate them to modular arithmetic. The final assessment is for students to find the day of their birth.
6-8, 9-12
In this lesson, students use proportions and similar figures to adjust
the size of the New York City Subway Map so that it is drawn to scale.
Students are asked to evaluate whether these changes are necessary
improvements.
6-8
We are lucky to live in an age where there is a lot of nutrition information available for the food we eat. The problem is that much of the data is expressed in percents and some of those percents can be misleading. This lesson is designed to enlighten students about how to calculate percent of calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein. The calculations are made to determine if a person can follow the Zone Diet with only McDonald's food items.
6-8
In baseball, a batter's slugging average is weighted according to the number of bases he gets. To calculate the average height of a team, each height must be weighted according to how many players are that tall. This lesson introduces students to weighted averages by looking at their own grades.
6-8
Students studying linear equations inevitably explore the concept of slope. Slope is a recurring topic found in algebra when studying linear equations, in trigonometry when studying the tangent ratio, and in calculus when studying the derivative. Lead students to a deeper understanding of slope and linear equations using elevation and distance data from a popular mapping website.
6-8
Students recall and model the square root as the length of one side of a square. But what if the square is not a perfect square? This collection of activities explores the square roots of not-so-perfect squares and develops an algorithm to express the not-so-perfect square root as a rational value.
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
Using two online activities, students use ratios and percents to compare population density and explore various statistical measures.
3-5, 6-8
In this lesson, students use a Venn diagram to sort prime factors of two or more positive integers. Students calculate the greatest common factor by multiplying common prime factors and develop a definition based on their exploration.
