Category: Ratio and Proportion

The Moroccan Earthquake and the Richter scale

Friday evening, September 8th, a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco southwest of Marrakech.
What does a 6.8 magnitude earthquake mean? How powerful was that? What is a seismometer and a seismograph? What is the amplitude of a seismograph reading? Why did the quake happen in Morocco?

Justin Verlander’s lunch bill

In the 2017 World Series, the Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers and went on to play (and lose to) the Boston Red Sox in the finals.  Evidently the population of Los Angeles held a grudge with the Astro’s…

Hurricanes again …

Updated In this updated hurricane activity, we’ve ask students to examine the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale and consider what other elements besides this ranking may contribute to the devastation that is caused by tropical storms. Students read about hurricane classfications…

Jock tax 2023

In this activity students consider the remarkable differences in state taxes that high paid pro athletes have to pay. Students determine how much more money an athlete should be paid in a high tax state in order to offset the taxes.

Monarch’s are flying south again

In mid-August and early September, the Monarch butterflies begin their annual migration south to more moderate climates to hibernate and overwinter. In this activity students read charts, do a little research, and make observations about the decline of Monarchs.

Calculator back-to-school sales

Just a class opener! Let students practice the meaning of savings and percent saving as you show them each of our on-sale calculator advertisements and ask them for calculations and opinions.

Will I have enough stuff?

We have 2 activities for National S’mores Day. (1) Number of ingredients to buy with no waste for all of my guests! (2) Building the largest S’more ever. What is reasonable.? How many marshmallows are in this recipe? How many people could this cookie feed? How many marshmallows could you eat?

This shoe is huge!

In this activity student need to use a shoe size chart, patterns or linear modeling to try to figure out what size this shoe must be.  Then they try to estimate how tall this person must have been.

Lionel Messi, soccer star and influencer

Lionel Messi is possibly the best soccer player in the world. How much influence does he have? Messi just shared an Apple TV link on his Instagram account.  The link takes you to Apple TV where you can subscribe and,…

Ice Cream Day – July 16th

We have two timely activities … Updated! All the ice cream that you can eat   All the ice cream that you can eat for only 10 cents!  Wow, that’s a great deal!  How great a deal was that? The history…

The 4th of July

Flag art, creating a 5-pointed star with one cut, fireworks on your calculator, hot dog eating contest, and a possible new, 52-star flag.

Can Joey and Miki do it again?

Updated !             The MLE – Major League Eating is a World organization that oversees speed eating contests. Entrants to the various competitions must be members of the MLE in order to compete. One of…

200 people

Let your students ponder this gif in full screen and then let them share what they notice and why this gif might have been created.

Father’s Day and Juneteenth

For Father’s Day Thank you Mother and Father for all of those diapers – Students compare the cost of buying disposable versus cloth diapers. They estimate how much they cost their parents in diapers and consider how much they will…