How Many Chickens?

Farmer Frank raises chickens and pigs. Students are asked to use specific given information to determine how many of Farmer Frank's animals are chickens. This problem will require students to persevere as they apply prior knowledge of fractions, ratios, and percents to algebra concepts such as solving a system of equations.

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.

Ice Cream and Temperature-Correlation Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to graph the data on a scatterplot and discuss the relationship they see between ice cream and temperature. 

Inferences about two populations

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to compare to samples from two different populations. They will make inferences based on what they find from their dot plot.

Inside Mathematics Educator Resource Site

Inside Mathematics is a professional resource for educators passionate about improving students' mathematics learning and performance. This site features classroom examples of innovative teaching methods and insights into student learning, tools for mathematics instruction that teachers can use immediately, and video tours of the ideas and materials on the site.

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

Is Ellen Correct?

This clip was edited for middle school students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeOLW-NqQt4

Is Manute, minute?

A powerpoint presentation that can be used to introduce the topic of scatterplots and lines-of-best fit using a fun context. 

Is the Sine a Circular Function? How about a Star Sine?

Students are often challenged by seeing the conncection between the unit circle and the graph of the sine and cosine functions. This activity is designed to take students out of their comfort zone to experience what the "sine" function would look like if it were based upon other geometric figures. 

Knee surgery & Muscle weakness

Linear Function Model - Blood Alcohol Content

This is the PowerPoint version of the activity related to developing a linear function model for the context of BAC.

M & M Variablility

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

Mathematics Vision Project Website

MVP provides curricular materials aligned with the Common Core State Standards for secondary mathematics. These items are free to download and remix.

Modeling with Exponential Functions

A worksheet involving exponential modeling.

Motivating Function Notation

Pat Thompson, ASU Mathematics Educator, wrote an article titled "Why use f(x) when all we really mean is y?” (see below for a link to the article). This activity is designed to help motivate a need for function notation and uses desmos.com as a tool. http://pat-thompson.net/PDFversions/2013WhyF(x).pdf

Multiplying Improper Fractions

Instructional videos for multiplying mixed numbers/improper fractions. The intent is NOT to share the most efficient, compact way to multiply. The point is to make sense of multiplication. Part 1 - multiplying two digit whole numbers in context. Part 2 - multipying mixed numbers using the idea from Part 1

Nana's Lemonade - Dan Meyer Three Act Task

In a brief video, students are confronted with the situation of a person squeezing a lemon slice into a small cup of water. Then a "big gulp" cup is placed next to the smaller, lemon filled cup. By asking the question, "How many lemon wedges do you need to add for the same lemony taste?" students will begin to experiment and mathematically determine the answer.

NEW and IMPROVED Division of Fractions

A NEW and IMROVED division of fractions activity designed to develop the...do I have to say it..."Keep Change Flip"...algorithm.  Includes student pages, teacher pages (with answers and description of the intended thinking) and a Smartpen pencast where I provide an overview/example of the intended thinking. Note that the pencast document comes in the form of a PDF - check out this for details as you need a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat X in order to view the pencast. -http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/faq/online_help/Maps/Connect_Desktop/c_viewing-and-playing-a-pencast-pdf.html

Now THAT'S Some Gas Mileage!

This activity involves working with percentages and is connected with the ACCR Standards at the sixth and seventh grade levels.

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.

Number Systems - Binary, Decimal, and Other systems

Students can struggle mightily with understanding place value as they begin to add and subtract numbers and "carry" and "borrrow". This short activity can be a great way to help students understand the concept of place value.

Number Systems - Place Value

Exploring different number bases may not only help you if you are needing in some particular application (like computers or electronics), but also in helping you make sense of the number system with which you are most familiar – the base 10 number system.

Oscar the Grouch and His New Home

This is a Calculus III project focused on Lagrange multipliers and constrained optimization.

Outlier Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to interpret measures of central tendency when an outlier is present. They will also be able to identify which value is an outlier and create a boxplot as well.

Paper-folding - Exponential Growth/Percentage Change

In this activity students are posed a simple question, "How tall will a paper be if it is folded 50 times?" and it is used as a fun way to introduce them to the concepts of growth factors, and percentage change. 

Pennies From Heaven

The focus of this activity is to describe the shape of a distribution and to describe the center and spread. Students use data they collect (penny ages) to describe the distribution by its SOCS (Shape, Outlier, Center, Spread). 

Piggy Bank Ca$h!

Meredith has LOTS of one dollar bills in her piggy bank, and she discovers something special when she stacks the bills in piles of 5, 6, and 8 bills. Find a pattern to answer some questions about what will happen if she stacks the bills in piles of 9. 

Powers of Ten - Number Sense

Students (and adults) have a difficult time trying to grasp very large (and very small) numbers. This activity uses an interesting context (astronomical objects0 to stimulate their interest in modeling enormous distances in a way that can help them understand relative distances. Students naturally arrive at the need for a different kind of number scale than linear and arrive at a "power of ten" (logarithmic) scale. The lesson includes an extension for advanced students ready to begin to investigate logarithms.

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

Problem Solving Template

Problem solving template used in my classroom. In PDF and Word formats. Created by members of Cohort 1 in Collaboration with Dr. Vicich.

Proportional Relationships of Triangles - An Activity

This is a two-part activity and will most likely take two 50 - 55 minute class periods – one day per part. Part I (Day one) is a hands-on activity that allows students to work together on computers to discover the proportional relationship between a pair of similar right triangles. Ideally, you will have a class set of computers or a computer lab you could use for this lesson. If you don't have access to these resources you can run a demonstration on one computer and project it for the class and have students come up to manipulate the triangles.

Proving the Pythagorean Theorem with Geogebra

The Pythagorean theorem is one of the most important concepts in all of mathematics. This activity uses Geogebra to help students see why the relationship between the sides of a right triangle are as they are. 

Pythagorean Theorem Investigation: It's As Easy As… a, b, c

Oftentimes, the Pythagorean Theorem is taught from the standpoint of, "Here is the formula, let's practice finding the lengths of the sides of triangles!" without helping students understand or develop the relationships between the sides on their own. This activity helps students experience those relationships using multiple approaches, prove why the theorem is true, and practice using it. 

Quadratic - Fence Problem

This is an activity designed to introduce a lot of concepts tied to quadratic functions. A piece of advice, make sure each group uses TWO pieces of pipe cleaners.

Quadratic Function Models - Fuel Efficiency Context

A PowerPoint presentation associated with the context of fuel efficiency as related to speed in miles per gallon. The intent of the task is for students to articulate the meaning of the parameters (coefficients) of a quadratic function model.

Rational Number Project - Initial Fraction Ideas

This is a series of lessons from the Rational Number Project (http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ci/rationalnumberproject/default.html) including teacher notes, activities ready to be copied. The Rational Number Project (RNP) is a cooperative research and development project funded by the National Science Foundation. Project personnel have been investigating children’s learning of fractions, ratios, decimals and proportionality since 1979. This book of fraction lessons is the product of several years of working with children in classrooms as we tried to understand how to organize instruction so students develop a deep, conceptual understanding of fractions. You may pick and choose the lessons that you would like to try and do not need to complete them all in order.

Ratios & Proportions Unit

Roll a Distribution

The purpose of this lesson is to allow the students to discover that data collected in seemingly similar settings will yield distributions that are shaped differently. Students will roll a single die 30 times counting the number of face up spots on the die and recording the result each time as a histogram or a histogram. Students will be asked to describe the shape of the distribution. Combining work with several students will yield more consistent results.

Rule Time: Salute to Brakes

This project involves a movie that was written by, directed by, and starring Scott Adamson and Trey Cox. The focus of the project is making sense of the idea of quadratic functions from a rate of change perspective. First, watch Part 1 with your class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2huVGJXnH8 Then watch Part 2 after the problem has been resolved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KStlLsmURcw

Rule Time: Salute to Speed

You will need these video clips: Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XLkMx58Mb8 Part 2 (after the problem situation is resolved) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ28I3TLcRI Outtakes if you want - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObBiRjepgxA

Rule Time: Salute to Sports!

The purpose of this module is to help students learn important applied mathematical concepts regarding exponential and logistic functions. Students will also learn how to graph and interpret exponential (and logistic, if desired) functions. The unique element of this lesson is the use of video to generate interest in the students and motivate the content through interactive technology, humor, and cooperative learning. Students are encouraged to work together and help each other “make sense” of the activities. You will need these video clips: Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUavijWEwaQ Part 2 (after the problem situation is resolved) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfGj7Ik7Zao

Sampling Reese’s Pieces

This activity uses simulation to help students understand sampling variability and reason about whether a particular sample result is unusual, given a particular hypothesis. By using first candies, a web applet, then a calculator, and varying sample size, students learn that larger samples give more stable and better estimates of a population parameter and develop an appreciation for factors affecting sampling variability.

Sampling Techniques - Jelly Blubbers

This activity introduces the Simple Random Sample (SRS) to students, and shows why this process helps to get an unbiased sample statistic. Relying on our perceptions can often be deceiving. In this exercisestudents are asked to determine the average length of a jellyblubber (a hypothetically recently discovered marine species) using a variety of techniques. The student will learn that a Simple Random Sample (SRS) is the most accurate method of determining this parameter, and that intuition can be deceptive. 

Scatter Plot Activity

Goal: The goal of this activity is for students to see different types of correlation and recognize the patterns associated with each type of correlation. They will then have to create their own scatter plot based on directions given.

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.

Shipping Routes - Dan Meyer Three Act Task

The questions are simple: As two ships leave port at the same time but at different speeds, we wonder if they will ever meet again? And if so, how long will that take? The lesson hooks students immediately with the initial video clip of two simulated ships leaving port and separating from one another as they travel at slower rates. 

Shooting Hoops! - Dan Meyer Three Act Task

In this lesson, students learn to graph quadratic equations, translate between the vertex, standard, and factored forms, and recognize the impact of changing the parameters of a quadratic equation.

Sochi Olympics - Junior High Math Contest

This is the 2013 Chandler-Gilbert Community College Junior High Math Contest Team Project. You may use all or just parts of it as it contains lots of different math topics including: The idea of AVERAGE The idea of AVERAGE SPEED and GRAPHS of LINEAR FUNCTIONS The idea of CREATING and INTERPRETING BOX and WHISKER PLOTS  The idea of SLOPE The idea of ANGLE The idea of PERCENT Look at the project and decide what parts your students are ready to tackle...and HAVE FUN!

Solving Systems of Linear Equations

This is a lesson to introduce the idea of solving systems of equations using graphical methods and substitution.  The goal is to help students to make sense of the meaning of the solution to a system and to make sense of what it means to substitute.