Big bucks 2023

Updated!

When soccer great, Lionel Messi played for Barcelona, he had one of the highest paid contracts of any athlete in the world.  He had a $674 million dollar 4-year contract. Canelo Álvarez is an incredible Mexican boxer with a 5-year contract for $365 million dollars. Take a look at some of the other big world sports' contracts from the NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB and European Football (soccer).  We often hear about big player contracts. Who makes the most per year? Per game? What sports?

In this activity, with a twist on unit rate, students find the average pay per year or "unit rate of pay" for a collection of highly paid athletes. Students think about unit rate; proportionality; slope; the relationship between multiplication and division; and the contrast between the pay of various sports.

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Earth’s perihelion with the Sun

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 1 AU and the perihelion distance in miles and kilometers.  Students decide how much closer we will be on January 4th, 2023 then at the Earth's aphelion, Thursday, July 6th, 2023, and figure out how long it will take to get to the Sun, leaving now in a school bus, a car, an airplane, a space craft, or in an “n” miles per hour vehicle.

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The Times Square Ball

Updated!

It's a gorgeous ball, covered with Waterford Crystal triangles, shaped as a geodesic icosahedron.  Every New Year's Eve it descends in Times Square to mark the beginning of the new year.  Students can take a closer look at this construction and use our drawings to experiment with slicing an icosahedron in order to discover how this shape is formed.

The activity: TimesSquareBall2023.pdf

CCSS: 7.G.A.3, 7.G.B, 8.G, HSG.GMD.B.4

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Beautiful mathematics

During the winter holiday break, appreciate the beauty of mathematics as you color, measure, design, check out Sierpinski, Fibonacci, spirals, Pythagorean triples, hexadecimal color codes, fractals, string design, modular math, Pascal's triangle, polyhedra, and build an eclipse,  

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Before the holidays (16 activities)

ChefAndrewYeo&nutcrackerGiant Macaroon Nutcracker - In 2013, Chef Andrew Yeo, built a giant macaroon nutcracker in a Boston hotel using given amounts of ingredients. Students try to figure out how much of each ingredient one would need to make a similar but much smaller macaroon nutcracker. 3.MD, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, 6.RP.3, 7.G.1, 7.G.6, HSG.MG.A.1

The growth of a snowflake - In this activity, students interpret a graphic that clarifies that crystal growth and try to deduce what conditions various flakes moved through as they fell. The activity finishes with the creation of a possibly accurate, six-pointed paper snowflake.   6.G.A, 7.G, 8.G, HSF, HSG.CO, MP1

Winter Solstice - updated for 2022! - Students appreciate how their latitude effects the darkness of their late afternoon location as they study the earth's tilt and the logic of daylight hours. 7.G.3, HSG.C, HSG.GMD.4, HSG.MG.1

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