There's a lot of misinformation out there about the cost to consumers of CFL and LED bulbs and the savings in energy and money that could be realized. Let your students "do the math" and realize some of the profit that could be made by changing our ways. This activity makes for a great activity for Earth Day or really any other day of the year. Lots of math to be explored including work with decimals operations, order of operations, graphing, systems and piecewise functions. The task is accessible for students from 5th grade through high school. Students might also want to compare the costs of each bulb over time for various number of bulbs in their home using this interactive Desmos graphing application.
For Adventurer members we have a Word docx, and Excel sheet with loads of data, and solutions and teacher suggestions below.
Thanking Jason Kibbe, Chambersburg, PA, middle school gifted support teacher, for his encouragement in updating this activity.
