Capture-Recapture

Imagine that a city employee is given the task of counting the number of fish in a city pond in a park. The “capture-recapture” method may be used to approximate the number of fish in the pond. The employee could capture a number of fish, say 20, and tag them and release them back into the pond. Waiting until the fish have a chance to become mixed with the other fish in the pond, the employee can capture more fish. If the number of fish captured is 25 and 4 of them are tagged, we can use proportional reasoning to estimate the number of fish in the pond.

Directed Distance - An Introduction to "Graph"

This annotated lesson can be used to introduce directed distance and the concept of graph. It can be used as the very first experience students have with graphs, as a review, and/or as an introduction to “circular” coordinates (you can choose to never refer to them as polar coordinates). It is highly interactive and connects the concepts of “new” graphing systems to rectangular coordinates. Initially, there is a brief history given and review of the Cartesian rectangular coordinate system.

Sugar Packets - Dan Meyer Three Act Task

The question is simple: How many sugar packets are in a soda bottle? The lesson hooks students immediately with the initial video clip of a man sitting in a restaurant downing packets of sugar one-after-another! The mathematics involved is proportional reasoning.

Preheating the Oven

Students use rate of change ideas to predict how long it will take for an oven to preheat to 400 degrees. The youtube video may be used to bring drama to the lesson! A link to the video is here and also in the documents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ooIWFAcII&list=UUiPlxONW80Z8rGpu3lSLwjg

How Big or How Little?

This activity is designed to have students think about what it means to “keep it in proportion” – a very common phrase, but what does it mean?

Number Sense: Getting a Feel for "BIG" numbers

Good number sense is fundamental for success in estimation, approximation, and problem solving. We need to develop a sense of large numbers because newspaper and television news reports contain many references to large quantities. This activity has students working with large numbers to understand their relative magnitudes.

Mathematics and Advertising

This activity is from the 2011 CGCC Junior High Math Contest Team Project. You may pick and choose which parts of the project to use or use it all! Percent increase/decrease and Area of circles The Counting Principle Pythagorean Theorem and Ratios

2015 Excellence in Mathematics Contest

This is the Team Project from the 2015 Junior High Excellence in Mathematics Contest at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. It involves lots of open ended problems from many mathematical areas: Find the weight of a snowman (geometry, proportional reasoning) Find how long it takes ice to form on a lake (rate of change, awkward units) Questions about the amount of mining done in Northern Minnesota (proportional reasoning, conversions) You can use just one part or all parts depending on the audience and the purpose.

Sharing Pencils

Sarah and Michelle are working on a class project using colored pencils. Given some information about the number of pencils that Sarah and Michelle had when they started, and how some sharing of pencils has taken place, students must employ proportional reasoning skills to determine how many colored pencils the girls now possess.

Steeper, Faster, Division, and Slope

What does "steeper" mean? What does "faster" mean? And how do these ideas connect to the idea of linear functions? This 3-part series explores these questions and helps students to understand why we divide when computing slope and what proportional correspondence has to do with it all!

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Yolanda and Zachary each have some fish. Zachary gives Yolanda some of his fish, and now he has twice as many fish as she does. Students must utilize given information and apply proportional reasoning skills in order to figure out how many fish Zach gave Yolanda.

How Many Houses?

Carpenters and apprentices are busy building houses... Students are asked to answer four questions regarding the relationships between the number of workers and how many houses can be built during a specific number of days.

Is a Super Ball REALLY Super?

Is a Super Ball REALLY "super?"  This activity allows students to collect data and to make an argument regarding this quetions. See the PowerPoint for details about the activity... Note: It is best to gain access to an authentic, Wham-O Super Ball made with Zectron! https://www.amazon.com/orginal-super-ball-wtih-zectron/dp/B0001ZN49I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513808409&sr=8-2&keywords=whamo+super+ball

Tesla Roadster Loan

Tesla Roadster Trip

Ratios & Proportions Unit