Use our current data on Halloween spending in America to engage your students in an analysis of the ratios and percents of population, participation, and money spent in honor of October 31st. This activity takes kids through finding parts of wholes as well as ratio, percents and proportion problems.
national debt What’s the big deal with our national debt? Do we actually borrow money to cover our debt? If we do, imagine the interest charges? Help your students (and their families) understand the meaning and repercussions of too much…
*** Two activities *** When Columbus landed in Guanahani (renamed San Salvador, Bahama Islands by Columbus), he began the European settlement of the New World. Guanahani was inhabited by the Taíno people and it wasn’t really a new world. In this…
Chucky E. Cheese needed to shred 7 billion tickets at a cost of 2.3 million dollars. Was this the real cost of shredding them?
What is this holiday about? Are we celebrating the start of school? New cars? The end of summer? Students look for patterns in the history of Labor Day dates. They then use those observed patterns to predict future dates of the holiday.
Who’s going back to school? – Students calculate the historical changes in U.S. population percentages of people who are going back to school and try to formulate reasons for these variations. 6.EE, 6.RP.3, 6.SP, 7.EE, 7.RP.3, 7.SP Does it pay to get…
In this activity student try to redistrict our pretend state in order to preserve the overall state’s leanings in its new districting plan. Then students redistrict the same state in a way that insures that the minority party will win the next election.
In this activity students work together to decide what equipment or supplies are necessary and how much they might cost. They research actual supply costs and finally decide how long they would have to work at minimum wage to pay for it all.
New York City is still tallying its election results for a new Mayor. This year they tried Ranked Choice Voting. What does that mean? How does that work? What are the ramifications of this sort of voting? Do you think that this will be a fairer and more positive way of electing a Mayor? Students experiment with the technique of tallying the votes using our flow chart and make some observations and decisions about the process.
3 activities for the Fourth of July: (1) Folding analysis to make a 5-pointed star; (2) Parabola manipulation to create a fireworks image on your calculator; and (3) Ratios, creativity, and art in creating new flag patterns.
U.S. Congress is now debating how much money to approve on spending for infrastructure. The numbers are between 1 and 3 trillion dollars. I can’t even fathom that amount of money. Is there a way to imagine it in proportion to something else?
Language just updated! You can appreciate why this is such a great celebration when you look at the stages and some of the events and dates of America moving towards freedom from slavery. In this activity students read about the…
What is a payday loan? How is it different from a bank loan or debt on a credit card? Is this a good idea?
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 AQI is a measurement of how much particulate matter, dangerous ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide there is in the world’s atmosphere at any one time and place. Students learn about the scale of the AQI and research some of the contributors for many unhealthy locations.