Which should we order and why? Two 12-inch pizzas or one 18-inch pizza? Which will give you more pizza? More crust? Which is the better deal? Let's do the math!
The activity: more-pizza.pdf
Checking in on LeBron
Now the that season is underway let’s check in on how Cleveland and the Lakers are doing since LeBron changed teams.
LeBron is arguably the best player in the NBA and a tremendous addition to a team ... a real difference maker. He began his career with the Cavaliers, then moved to the Miami Heat, then back to the Cavaliers, and now he's moved to the Lakers.
In this activity students read graphs and use measures of central tendency as they compare the records of the Miami Heat, the Cleveland Cavilers, and the Los Angeles Lakers with and without LeBron. How many wins per season can we expect from the Lakers now that they have LeBron and just how many wins is LeBron worth? Give students some time to think about & discuss ways that we can measure LeBron's effect on the performance of a team. Here is a link to a video clip about Lebron moving to the Lakers that you might use to introduce the context of this activity.
Huge diamond found in Canada
552-carat diamond found in Diavik Mine, Northwest Territories, Canada
Can you tell just how big this gem is? Do you know how big a carat is? What would this look like on a ring on your finger?
New Horizons spacecraft just flew by a really distant asteroid
Brian May, the lead guitarist of the rock band, Queen, is also an astrophysicist and one of the science team collaborators of the New Horizons space program. The video below is the song that he wrote to celebrate the New Horizons' latest achievement ... flying by Ultima Thule.
You and your class might begin this activity with a viewing of Brian May's just-released song and a class discussion about the New Year's day fly-by.
On January 1st, 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft passed close to Ultima Thule, a Kuiper Belt object that's a billion miles beyond Pluto. That milestone marked the most distant celestial object that we have ever been able to see close-up. In this activity student do some rate conversions to try to understand the delay in knowing that the mission was a success.
Will we be “in our prime” this year?
Every birthday I consider whether I'm in the "prime of my life" ... like when I was 29 years old. Will this new year be a prime year? I hope so.
Don't use Google or Siri or whatever. Just see if you can figure this out and explain your reasoning.
The activity: PrimeYear2019.pdf
Times Square Ball Drop
Share the data in your class and ask what the numbers make your students wonder and what they can observe from the information.