Category: Data and probability

It’s almost summer now

How much water should you drink? How much pee is in this pool? How has the presence of lyme disease changed? Which is the best drink deal at the fair?

Memorial Day 2023

Who are we honoring?  How did the holiday come about?  Isn’t Memorial Day usually on May 30th?
Students learn a little about the history of the holiday, analyze the possibilities and patterns for when it is celebrated and make observations about the incredible numbers of deaths that have been caused by war.

The 8th billion baby

How fast is the World’s population growing? Will the world’s population size increase indefinitely?  Are all countries’ populations increasing at the same rate? What are some of the factors affecting this growth?

Triple Crown hopefuls at the Preakness

Saturday, May 20th, will be the running of the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race in Baltimore, Maryland. The Preakness is the second major race for 3-year old thoroughbreds to run in their effort to claim the Triple Crown of horse…

Mother’s Day ideas (14 activities)

Updated! How much do we spend on Mother’s Day – Use the Mother’s Day event to engage your students in approximating, reasoning, and investigating as students estimate how much is spent in the United States for Mother’s Day. For what…

Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo

This activity involves recipe analysis, pricing, and comparison. Students gather the ingredients for a famous recipe and analyze how much it would cost to make it at home versus buying it at the restaurant.

New bust of King Charles … in chocolate

Saturday, King Charles will be crowned as the King of the United Kingdom. Artists at the Mars Wrigley company made a gorgeous chocolate bust of the King wearing his military uniform. We wondered how much that big piece of chocolate cost to make.

Earth Day actions for our planet

We have 16 activities that you could use for Earth Day! Saturday, April 22nd is Earth Day. Help your students become activists for our planet? We have 16 activities that support recycling, conserving resources, awareness of climate change and protecting our planet.…

Spring and Easter ideas – 6 activities

Dyeing eggs with food coloring – Students use the chart on the back of a food dye package to compare the strangely different recipes listed for coloring a cake, icing, or dyeing eggs. They look for and create equivalent ratios…

What is an atmospheric river (AR)?

Atmospheric Rivers! How are they ranked? Students become familiar with this weather phenomena and learn how they are measured. To more fully understand their power, students compare the strength of an AR to the momentum of a Mack truck using rate conversions.

How hard it is to pick the perfect bracket?

If you try to predict how the games will play out by filling out a bracket, what are your chances of picking every game? How does the change from 64 to 65 to now, 68 teams in the field complicate things?  How many brackets would you need to fill out to pick every possibility?