In my grocery store they now have these new water bottle refilling stations. You can simply refill your own container with water instead of buying a six-pack of bottled water. Do you think that this is a good idea? Are they…
Saving Water Bottles
Math and Social Studies
Tick time and Lyme disease
With the start of summer and wonderful outdoor activities, it might be good to examine the growth of Lyme disease occurrences in the United States. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published maps for all of the…
Memorial Day 2017
This Monday Americans will celebrate Memorial Day. 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 for when it is…
Proposed southern border wall
You have probably heard about the proposed border wall that may go up along the U.S./Mexico border. How much wall needs to be built? How much will that cost? What is that per mile? Per foot? What else could you…
Earth Day, 2017
Saturday, April 22nd is Earth Day There is so much to bring to your classroom to support recycling, conserving resources, studying climate change and protecting our planet. McDonald’s moves toward Antibiotic-free chicken – What will the effects be on costs at the restaurant, costs in…
Patriots’ Day
In Massachusetts, April 17th will be a holiday from school and work in Massachusetts. We celebrate Patriots’ Day on the 3rd Monday in April to commemorate the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the battles of Lexington and Concord. We…
What does 95% confidence in the poll results mean?
There were polls about who would win the Presidential election. Now there are polls about approval ratings for Congress and President Trump. You can see the latest poll results here. I get so confused when polling results are reported. What…
In honor of Presidents’ Day find out about President’s pay
You can’t run for President now, but heck, 2036 is right around the corner. Being President of the United States will be quite an accomplishment and a ton of work. But, how is the pay? Does the job pay…
Valentine’s Day activities
Chocolate-raspberry heart-shaped cake – Students build a heart cake and use ratio information to find the quantities of cake and icing resulting from increased dimensions. A parametric heart … with love – Students use unit triangles and manually calculate sine and cosine…
Have a heart
Clicking on the image above will show the heart larger in a new window. Canstruction® is an event hosted in more than 150 countries throughout the world to demonstrate “innovation, hunger relief and collaboration”. Canstruction has raised more than 40 million…
Civil rights marches, how do you count a crowd?
On October 16, 1995, perhaps a million black men gathered for the Million Man March on Washington. This was 32 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial to 250,000 civil…
Possible activities in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr
Time lines for life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. – Two timelines that show the rate and spacing of progress. One timeline about events and accomplisments of Martin Luther King, Jr Second timeline about the progress made in America, so…
$10,000 a week or $10 million all at once?
Check out the video below: Would you rather have $10,000 a week or $10 million all at once? What kinds of things do we need to think about or factor in when making this decision? If you had to advise…
Black Friday, football, and giving
Construction This is a 3-act activity about an annual display of creativity, engineering, and design as artists contribute cans of food for the shelters and food banks of their city. Students analyze, look for patterns, discuss solutions, and finally quantify the number…
Veterans Day
As Veterans Day approaches, let your students learn about and appreciate the meaning of the day by analyzing the powerful data that we’ve supplied. Students can use our numbers to create questions for their classmates … questions that can emphasize the tremendous gift…