Investigations that relate to regular annual events.
Brand new! What’s with the March Equinox? Does it really affect our lives? Is it just some astronomical occurrence? Students calculate the daylight hours at the March Equinox by time between longest and shortest days. They examine the progression of…
We have 3 Saint Patrick’s Day activities for your math class. How hard is it to find 4-leafed clovers, the nutritional values of a Shamrock Shake, and measuring parts per million (ppm) of dyeing the Chicago River green.
How much are US presidents paid? Step graph. Fair?
Mardi Gras, meaning, parades, beads, value, cost, reuse, environment.
Have a heart Canstruction – Students use reasoning and approximation to analyze the number of cans of food contained in this one giant heart. Consider starting out the activity by showing students the picture of the heart and doing a see…
For Valentine’s Day, bake a cake. Students calculate base area or volume of cakes made from 2 cake pan sizes and observe how the volume of the cake changes with the increased pan size. This is an activity intended to…
How many dollars worth of sweetheart candies used to be sold each Valentine’s season? How much is one candy worth? After Valentine’s Day their price is reduced. How much are they worth then?
How often does Punxsutawney Phil get it right? Relative frequency! A cute animal will make your students smile as they calculate the relative frequency of Phil’s correct past predictions.
A combination of 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches, the year’s symbol creates a sequence of year names that eventually repeat. Students explore the least common multiple of these two cycles without ever hearing the term LCM.
Timelines for the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. – Students create one of two timelines about Martin Luther King Jr’s life or the efforts in America to create a more fair racial balance in the U.S. …
Today, Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, Earth will be as close as it gets to the Sun during its orbit. Shouldn’t that make this the warmest time of the year? In this activity students become familiar with the terms perihelion and aphelion as they calculate…
What does truncation mean? How is the Times Square Ball related to an icosahedron? Let students learn about the crystals and the LEDs that create this beautiful construction.
We have tons (well, 16) of activities to bring to your class in this last week before the holiday break. Movies, science, art, cooking, economics, weather and the logic of calendars. Enjoy!
In this 3-act task, your class guesses how many feet of lights you will need to light your tree. Then gather data from groups and find means or medians. Then actually calculate an estimate given tree dimensions.
